Kate McNew

Artist's website: horriblehyena.wixsite.com/hyenart

Kate McNew is a Richmond, Indiana based artist that primarily works in digital art who dabbles in painting and sculpting from time to time. She has been making characters and their own worlds since she was a child, similar to making imaginary friends. Projecting certain parts of her personality onto these characters has been an excellent way of finding her own identity and coping with stressful life events. Some characters grow on me more than others, becoming more than just an outlet. Currently, her project is focused on one character that she had no idea would end up being so important to her. She is currently majoring in Fine Arts with plans to graduate in the fall of 2020. In her spare time, she likes to play Nintendo and Sega games (which have greatly inspired several of her characters) and search for music that fuels ideas for her art. Her work has been shown at a number of student shows at Indiana University East and is also viewable on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

Artist Statement

A huge theme in my artwork is attempting to blur the line between erotic and violent. Several of my pieces include an original male character who is androgynous is appearance. I have been prioritizing this character since early 2019, constantly making art of him either being forced into or willingly taking part in situations that are dangerous but also pleasurable. More private pieces of mine have made this more obvious, so I am mixing this theme with introductory pieces showing his fun-loving and smug personality. Some of these pieces come from a personal place in my brain and have been a means of coping. I have struggled with my identity for years, and this character, named Ag (short for “agony”), has given me an effective way of exploring my likes and dislikes, and combining the two as a way of rationalizing them. However, in my time of developing Ag, he has become somewhat more of a close friend rather than just an escape. The main goal of this series is to explain and illustrate key traits of Ag through digital artwork.