Perhaps fate brought Amara Eke and Jade Knox to the University of Washington for their MFAs, because they were destined to be friends. They hit it off right away, thanks to shared East Coast roots and a love of big fun, live music, and The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

Very early on, Eke revealed that she’d never seen a meteor shower. Knox, who’d been stargazing all her life, resolved to change that, stat. She organized a camping trip in a remote area near North Bend where they’d be able to witness the Draconids.

When they arrived, the clouds parted and the sky lit up with shooting stars and a dazzling celestial display. “It was definitely a core memory,” Eke says. “It brought us closer together as friends.”

Years later the experience also shaped Comin’ in Hot!, the artists’ current exhibition at Gallery 4Culture, which is a kind of tribute to their friendship. The show features works made both individually and collaboratively: Some of Eke’s acrylic paintings are portraits of Knox’s ceramic sculptures and others include them in the background; some of Knox’s sculptures have been painted on by Eke. All of the works share a visual language and together they tell a story about otherworldly magic, like a spaceship ride to another planet.

Soon after they became friends, Knox and Eke also became roommates, but they never actually collaborated until the summer of 2024, when they both participated in an Exquisite Corpse show—an exhibition based on a Surrealist game in which artists each create different aspects of a composition, often with absurd results. For that show, Knox made a trio of sculptures, then handed them off to Eke to paint on them. The unconventional collaboration proved inspiring.

“Painting on a surface that wasn’t just flat 2D was really interesting for me,” Eke says. “The surface informed what I was going to put on it.” Knox usually considers the finished surface of a sculpture as she’s building it, but in creating a smooth, paintable surface, she says, “I got to let go of the overthinking part that normally comes with thinking about the finished piece before it’s finished.”

Without sharing any thoughts or intentions about the work, the two artists found they were in sync thematically.

“Amara talks a lot about magic and love, and her egg theme is all about genesis,” Knox says of their artistic compatibility. “And my practice is very much about evolution, so similar to genesis, and I like to think of my things as alien life forms or future creatures.”

Comin’ in Hot! gave the two a chance to explore their creative collision further. From the start, the work benefitted not only from their constant communication at home, but also from the trust they had in each other. Their encouragement and permission never faltered.

“It’s all ‘yes, and,’” Eke says. “There was never a ‘no’ uttered in the entire process, it was always ‘yes, more.’”

Eke started making work for the exhibition first, as she had already graduated and Knox was still finishing her final year at UW. Working out of a bedroom-turned-studio in their house, she began making small paintings using symbols of luck and fortune from both artists’ practices, such as horseshoes and four-leaf clovers. Those paintings established a foundation for their joint visual language and began to chart a narrative for the show.

“Amara was definitely thinking more about what was going to be happening in this world,” Knox says. “I was more focused on basically building the set, building this space for the scene of what was happening.”  And she didn’t have much time to do it, either. Not knowing what kind of access she’d have to a kiln after she graduated, Knox needed to finish her ceramics last June.

As the sculptures neared completion, Eke was awarded a six-month residency in a downtown studio through Shunpike’s Seattle Restored program, providing her with more space to work on larger pieces that could develop the ideas in Comin’ in Hot! even more. One large work, for example, features all of the “characters” in the show, a presentation Eke likens to the credit sequence of a movie.

Just as their friendship has changed them, Knox and Eke’s collaboration has changed their artmaking. Eke has a new appreciation for space and weight, for instance. “Sculptures are very architectural, and my stuff is very figural, flat, and cartoony. Now I’m thinking about perspective and how things sit in a different way than I did before and I’m trying to translate textures into painting.”

For Knox, the work she made for the 4Culture exhibition got her thinking about movement in a new way. “Normally my pieces are pretty static. But the way this show came together, I have a lot of things that are pretty precarious and look like they’ve been thrown across the room, which adds a lot to the motion of the installation.”

Both artists have also influenced each other’s use of color. “Amara has this really bright rainbow color palette,” Knox says. “Before I met her, I was doing a lot of really dark, scary, sad work.” Meanwhile, Knox motivated Eke to work outside of her go-to palette.

Eke points out that many artists have muses, and most of the time their relationships are romantic. But friendship can also be a powerful source of artistic generation—and a catalyst for positive transformation.

“We believe that wishes come true when you see something supernatural like a shooting star,” Eke says. “Change can come from it. Love and unity, friendship, all these things can be the birthplace a better future.”

Knox agrees, “We just want to bring more hope and light and love into the world.”

Comin’ in Hot! is on view through December 12. A closing reception will be held on December 4 from 6:00 – 8:00pm.