Atlanta sculptor Eileen Braun is 5-foot-1. In “Pumped UP,” her solo exhibition at Gallery 100, she goes big.
The show, on view through Jan. 14, 2027, gathers roughly 20 of Braun’s works, sculpted from dressmaker’s pattern tissue, cones of mill-end fiber, baling twine, construction-grade rubber, found objects and gold gilding foil.
It also marks a shift for Braun. It’s full of color. Pieces in “Pumped UP” range from turquoise and blue to orange and coral. In the past, her work was “predominantly black and white,” she shared. “My muse was delighted to finally have color to play with.”
The first of the colored pieces came during a hard stretch. Last October, Braun fell and broke a leg. Unable to get to her studio, she had her husband bring her supplies and started making blue sculptures now on display in the show. “I thought, ‘You know, this is a really good time to try something new,’” she said.
Then, the day after Thanksgiving 2025, Braun slipped again, breaking her other leg. “I said, ‘You know, I’m just going to keep going and having fun with the color and the form,’” she laughed.
Turning salvage into sculpture
Braun salvaged much of what she creates with. Misprinted pattern tissue from a secret factory source. Brightly-colored bailing twine saved from landscaping projects and livestock feed.
“A friend who has horses said, ‘Well, you know, they wrap the bundles of feed for animals in that twine,’” Braun said. “But she couldn’t save the quantity that I needed, so now I go to a feed store, and I — with their permission, of course — pick up all the twine that’s lying on the ground from bundles that have exploded.”
Her landscaper, Braun said, gets a kick out of contributing to the work. “My husband showed him some pictures, and he was like, ‘Glad I’m a part of it … crazy artists.’”
And because he and other unseen collaborators are a part of the work, Braun made sure to honor them in “Pumped UP”’s show statement. “Ultimately, this work also honors the undervalued labor of the seamstresses, construction workers, and agricultural hands through which these materials have passed,” she wrote. “Through my hands, they step into a commanding central presence.”
How the work reveals itself
Every piece begins with a sketch, but that’s “just a jumping-off point,” Braun said. “As I work, truly the piece tells me often where to go next or what color to do next.”
From there, much of the work is handmade. Braun cuts the pattern tissue into strips — generally 5 inches wide and 5 or 6 feet long — knots them end to end, then knits them with her fingers. “The paper is of course fragile,” she explained. “I found only my hands treating it gently was the way to go.”
The knitted tissue becomes large wall hangings and vessels, tied with twine and often accented with gold gilding foil. Braun paired paper and gold, for contrast. “My work often has a push/pull movement — opposites that give movement,” she said. “What could be more opposite from the unseen, discarded paper? Gold.”
Not everything starts as paper. Braun’s black wall sculptures begin as rattan reed, which she coats in low-VOC rubber, an idea that came to her “out of the blue.”
What Gallery 100 visitors will see
The experience unfolds slowly. “It’s that kind of personal discovery,” she said.
Braun lives that way, too. “I am so curious about everything in the world,” she said.
The wall work in “Pumped UP” hangs at many angles, throwing deep shadows. The largest wall piece in the show stands roughly 10 feet high and 8 feet wide, Braun estimated. “You have to be there in person to see it,” she said. Her floor sculptures get “breathing room and a stage to show off their finery.”
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As for what visitors take home, that’s up to them. “It’s not about the materials themselves,” she said. “It is about your reaction and your conversation with the piece.”
An opening reception for “Pumped UP” is set for Thursday, Oct. 22. RSVP on Facebook.
