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South Pasadenan, Aubry Deetjen, has been a multi-hyphenate artist her whole life. She is currently in the dance department at LACHSA, but got her start as an artist in her home art studio and with Hope Perello at SPACE and Emily Cline at The Hive. Deetjen has just has been named a 2024 YoungArts winner with distinction in Design, the highest honor of the organization, for her design work.
Deetjen has been recognized for the caliber of her artistic achievement and joins nearly 700 of the most accomplished young visual, literary, and performing artists from throughout the country. YoungArts award winners are selected through a highly competitive application, which is reviewed by panels of esteemed, discipline-specific artists in a rigorous
adjudication process.
In following her heart and pursuing fashion design, Deetjen has been working independently on her portfolio and has applied to several design programs across the country and receiving the YoungArts Award is certainly a great feather in her cap on this journey.
“It is a huge honor to join the community of YoungArts scholars,” Deetjen tells us. “As we each strive to change the world for the better through arts I look forward to working with and learning from the other artists selected for this amazing opportunity. I am looking forward to using this experience to grow as an artist and hope to be accepting into design school at the college level where I can continue to learn and grow as an artist.”
2024 YoungArts award winners join a community of artists who are offered creative and professional development support throughout their careers. A complete list of the 2024
winners, all 15–18 years old or in grades 10–12, is available online at youngarts.org/winners.
“It is an extraordinary privilege to welcome these brilliant young artists into the YoungArts community,” said YoungArts President Clive Chang. “We’re honored to recognize and encourage these artists at this critical stage in their careers, and we’re looking forward to playing an active, ongoing role in what will no doubt be an incredible artistic journey for each of them.”
As a winner with distinction, Deetjen will participate in National YoungArts Week, January 7-13, 2024, in Miami. During the week, artists have opportunities to share their work, experience interdisciplinary classes and workshops, and receive mentorship from leading artists in their fields. The 2024 winners with distinction will have the chance to learn from notable artists such as Denyce Graves, Lois Greenfield, and Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy of Ragamala Dance. Throughout the week award winners are further evaluated for cash awards of up to $10,000.
Following National YoungArts Week, Deetjen is eligible to be nominated to become a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, one of the highest honors given to high school seniors by the President of the United States. YoungArts, the sole nominating agency, nominates 60 artists to the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, from which the 20 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts are selected.
All YoungArts award winners have demonstrated exceptional technique, a strong sense of artistry, and an extraordinary commitment to developing their crafts. This year, winners were selected from more than 9,000 applications across 10 artistic disciplines – classical music, dance, design, film, jazz, photography, theater, visual arts, voice, and writing.
For the duration of her career, Deetjen is eligible for exclusive creative and professional development support; microgrants and financial awards; presentation opportunities in collaboration with major venues and cultural partners nationwide; and access to YoungArts Post, a free, private online platform for YoungArts artists to connect, collaborate and discover new opportunities. 2024 YoungArts winners also have the opportunity to participate in YoungArts Labs, all-expenses paid learning intensives with field-defining artists working in New York and Los Angeles.
As a YoungArts award winner, Deetjen joins a group of accomplished arts such as Daniel Arsham, Terence Blanchard, Camille A. Brown, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Amanda Gorman, Judith Hill, Jennifer Koh, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Andrew Rannells, Desmond Richardson and Hunter Schafer.
The YoungArts competition is open to artists 15-18 years old (or in grades 10 – 12). For more information about becoming a YoungArts award winner click here.
Below find Aubry Deetjen’s Artist Statement for design:
The human body has been something that has fascinated me throughout my life.
During the fall of last year, I got into a severe car accident which deterred me from
continuing the central part of my life at the time, ballet. Being a dancer for over a decade, I
have always been aware of myself in space, how I move and interact with my surroundings.
The scrutiny within dance surrounding body image along with the high chance of
life-altering injury, makes our perception of how we as dancers are viewed highly acute,
which innately forced me into a hyper-aware state of my physical sense of self.
Transversely, it also gave me a deep understanding of my body’s health and well-being at all times. This overwhelming self-awareness is what draws me to the human form so much in my work, as I grow to understand how our physical identities allow us to show intellect and interests through how we present ourselves to others.
Following my accident, I wanted to find new ways to pursue my art, as I confronted
the fear of permanent injury, I once again, turned to the human form as the nexus for my
artistic expression. I returned to art by advocating for a dual-concentrate study in Fashion
and Dance at my school, and as I processed my injuries, the idea of the distorted human
image and accessibility throughout recovery became prevalent throughout my artistic
practice. Drawing inspiration from elements that were at my forefront, such as our
muscular and skeletal systems, my x-rays, and the nude figure that I studied in my
figure-drawing class, I began to grapple with the concept of creative identity through my
injury through the dichotomy between the internal and external states of being which I
would study further during my time at the RISD Pre-College Program.
This scientific approach to fashion as a continuation of the body drew me towards it
with such ferocity in the first place. The way we use fabric as an extension of ourselves to
express our individuality is a constant inspiration as I pursue my work. Continuing this lead
me to my interest in using a large amount of industrial and heavy materials and textile
manipulation in my work, using materials that hold their shape on their own allows me to
integrate the idea of human sculpture into my design.
Fashion design represents how we, as members of society, express our creativity to
one another before we even speak. Using this idea, I strive to design based on my
experiences as I grow as a creative. As I pursue design, my goal is to promote the idea of
fashion as a form of artistic human expression, only to be contained by the confines of one’s own personal creativity. I believe this mindset will allow people to become better free
thinkers and visionaries who are open to creating outside societal confines.
