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Interviews with Artists







Amy Precious



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Interview by Dave McLeavy

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Published in October 2026

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We sit in a warehouse within Hull’s Fruit Market district, an area of the city that has been transformed into a cultural hotspot. This former warehouse, just off Humber Street, is now a gallery space, and today it plays host to the work of Amy Precious. I had the pleasure to sit down with Amy and discuss The Sound of Your Own Voice, an exhibition produced in partnership with Westbourne House, and forming part of UNTHINKABLE Film Festival, an experimental arts festival taking place across multiple venues across the city. The exhibition contains a mixture of new and older paintings by Amy, alongside work produced by the community who are supported by Westbourne House. 

The conversation happened in person and what you find below is a transcription which aims to capture what we explored over the course of an hour. 


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Could you tell me about moving to Hull and how your practice developed?

I’m originally from Beverley, East Yorkshire, and I moved to Hull when I was 18. All my friends were around the Princes Avenue area, so that’s where I got my first flat. I started working at Dive, a bar on Princes Avenue, where I met the DJ Kev. We began making music inspired by 90s trip-hop, with lots of sampling, mixing and experimentation.

I was also doing exhibitions locally. It was a really community-based area: everyone knew everyone, and I embraced it and they embraced me. I’ve always loved talking to people and getting to know their experiences. A lot of my work was about the people around me and that transition from growing up in a small town to being in this big, creative place.

The music and visual work hadn’t quite merged yet. That started to happen a couple of years later, when I began my degree at Hull College and sat down with myself to think about where I wanted to go with it.





What helped you bring sound and painting together?

Studying Kandinsky really opened something up for me. I’d always felt that dance, music and visual art were linked, and I loved the idea of using colour to express sound.

I’d already been making field recordings on my phone. One of the first things I worked from was a recording of my boyfriend playing guitar while I was cooking. I wasn’t trying to illustrate the scene literally. I was listening to the sounds and making gestures and forms through them. It freed me up and got me in touch with something more intangible.

Then I started experimenting with different sounds, including the sounds of riots: violence, and people being unhappy with the state of things. It became a wider question about our current landscape. How does sound affect our bodies? How can the sounds of now become visual, so people can understand something of what’s happening around them?

I’ve always been interested in challenging subjects, but approaching them through a different form of communication. My work can be very abstract. Someone once said a painting looked like a tiger because of the lines in it, but for me it’s a sonic expression of what’s around me.


How does that work in the studio? Do you have a way of getting into that state of listening?

I’m always listening and collecting sounds. Somebody’s voice can connect you to the raw essence of a moment. I usually know the idea or feeling I want to explore, and when I put the recording on, I get into that world.

I think it comes from making experimental music: sampling, mixing and choosing different parts. Whether a composition is visual or musical, there are different elements intertwined within it. I might focus on a voice, a car horn or footsteps, then build it up from there. Usually I begin with people’s voices, and the surroundings come in afterwards.

I record things and take them back to the studio, then paint with my headphones on. You hear extra details that way, even tiny things. Sometimes human forms come through in the paintings; sometimes they’re completely abstract.





What kinds of places or sounds catch your attention?

I have thousands of notes on my phone about places I want to go back to and record. One is the Prospect Centre. There’s something interesting about hearing 80s music in a place that can feel like a ghost town. It’s strange, but also quintessentially Hull. Those questions about where we’re from really interest me.

I love birds, too. Their sounds are naturally soothing, and I’m always listening and making gestures from them. I made a painting from recordings on Bridlington beach, with people sitting around there.

That part of my brain is always ticking when I’m out: somebody selling something, or a sound on the street. As an artist, part of the commitment is giving yourself time to tap into that and develop it.


We’re sitting in your exhibition, which brings together painting, sound and work made with Westbourne House residents. What was the starting point?

It was about listening and communication, and exploring a world that was very close to me but that I felt shut off from. Westbourne House, which supports people experiencing homelessness, is right on the corner near where I live. It was so clearly present, but it almost felt like the edge of the earth.

I wanted to step into that world and listen to different perspectives. Certain voices are seriously unheard. I wanted to spend time with people, connect with them and give them space to make their own expressions, while understanding more about what it’s like to be homeless in this area.

The project also explores the digital side of our lives. A lot of the online responses about the hostel are negative, and I wanted to look at what algorithmic echo chambers are doing to us emotionally. There’s a divide between people’s actual lives and the way they’re represented online. For me, it’s about what it means to be heard, and listening to residents’ perspectives rather than only other people’s perceptions of them.


How did you approach Westbourne House and get the project going?

I’d had the idea for a long time. I knew there might be an opportunity to show the work through UNTHINKABLE Film Festival, which gave me something to work towards. But I approached Westbourne House first and asked whether they’d like to do it with me.

They said yes, and told me they’d been waiting for somebody or an organisation to come and speak to them. That was a big thing to hear. Without approaching people, we’re not going to know about those possibilities.

We arranged weekly afternoon workshops and different activities. I then took the proposal to the festival as a year-long project, which I could also work on while finishing my degree. I felt supported by people I knew I could approach, and it developed really organically.





What happened in the workshops, and how does the residents’ work sit within the exhibition?

Colour was often the starting point. I’d ask what colours people were attracted to and encourage them to build something from there. For me, colour brings out different emotional responses.

The installation brings together their individual experiments and explorations. Some are abstract; others show Westbourne House itself. A lot of the work captures their experiences of living in Hull, as well as more personal experiences.

I went in every Thursday afternoon for a year. I wanted to build those relationships and present their work in a way that felt right. I didn’t want it to be a quick blip. I wanted people to feel they could relax into it and really get involved. There’s so much more work that I couldn’t fit into the exhibition.

One resident whose work is shown here didn’t realise how good it was. Now he’s interested in applying for a course at Hull College. Seeing that change has been a really rewarding part of the project.


Listening seems to connect your studio practice with the time you’ve spent working with residents. Has this changed how you think about making work?

It’s been an exploration of how I like to work, and a way of challenging myself to do something bigger. It’s made me think about how a project lets you really get into a subject. That requires a lot of listening and tuning in. The people at Westbourne House were so welcoming and open with me.

Listening face to face is different from typing something online and getting a response. You get a sense of the whole person: how they talk, whether they’re reserved, and how they express themselves. For me, connecting with someone that way is crucial to getting a rounded perspective, especially in a project like this.

I’d love to do more social projects. The world is changing so rapidly, and there’s so much to explore. I think sound will always be the starting point.


What will visitors hear in the exhibition?

There’s a soundscape made from time spent in the workshops and recordings of the wider area. I’ve been recording my walks into town, picking up construction sounds, little conversations and things you hear as you pass through day-to-day life.

There are also two sets of headphones with more personal accounts from residents. People have very kindly shared their stories in one-to-one conversations and allowed me to include them in the exhibition.

It brings together the area we walk through every day with a deeper sense of the lives within it.





Which artists do you return to for inspiration?

Kandinsky is important to me, and I love Hockney and Van Gogh. With Hockney, I love that sense that there’s always more to see: really looking at something and investing the time in it. That’s something I want to convey through my work, too.

I saw Edvard Munch’s work in Oslo and it blew me away. The way he brings out emotion through gestures is beautiful. I love Matisse’s use of simple forms, and Picasso and Francis Bacon are also important to me.

Cindy Sherman’s close-up images inspired three of the portraits in this exhibition. I saw them as a comment on how Facebook can turn us into warped versions of ourselves. The way she distorts the face felt close to what I wanted to convey.

I’m always looking for new work, too. I love Grace Weaver. Those interests keep growing.


What’s your experience of being an artist in Hull at the moment?

Living around Princes Avenue set me up to meet a lot of creative people. I was making music alongside my degree, and I’d worked at the Adelphi, so I was already meeting people and saying yes to opportunities.

Spaces like Humber Street Gallery, and events like UNTHINKABLE Film Festival, give you the chance to speak to like-minded people. You learn so much about their lives, their experiences and how their minds work. It’s crucial to have those places, especially for people starting out who want to meet others and feel inspired.

At the festival I met a dancer, and we had a really good conversation about setting yourself up as an artist and the pressures that can bring. Those connections start to flow when people come together.

It feels like there’s a real buzz in Hull at the moment, and it deserves it. There are some really creative people here with very different perspectives. It’s important that we communicate with each other.


You’ve brought a lot of people together for this project. Is collaboration something you’d like to explore further?

I love collaboration. I couldn’t have done this without everyone involved: the residents, Becky at Westbourne House, who accommodated me every week, and UNTHINKABLE helping me to have this space. Community is everything. It really is.

I’ve always loved speaking to people and making those connections, and I’ve slowly become more confident about approaching people with ideas. Having done this project, I’d love to do something like it again.

I’ve also talked with Doodle Demon about collaborating on sculptures: he makes figures, and we had the idea of me painting them in my style. I love getting ideas flowing and bouncing them off someone else. That connection helps the work grow.





Now you’ve finished your degree, what would you like to explore next?

I haven’t got anything fixed just yet. I’m keeping my ears and eyes open. I’d love to do a project about nature and landscapes, exploring field recordings, birdsong and the different compositions you can make from those sounds. Sound is so vast.

But I could say that and end up doing another socially focused project. I want to really get into something and compose a work that paints a bigger picture, allowing people to immerse themselves in another aspect of the Humber region or somewhere further afield.

I went to Iceland last year, and the landscape was unreal: the weather, the volcanoes, the way the place speaks to you. Our world is under a lot of strain, and I’m interested in listening to how it speaks to us.


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amyprecious.com
︎ @amy_aprecious

davidmcleavy.info
︎ @davidmcleavy_

unthinkable.org.uk
︎ @unthinkable.hull
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If you like this why not read our interview with Maya Rose Edwards.
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