College Street Gallery Co-op (Buffalo Rising)

College Street Gallery Co-op
A palette paints Buffalo black and every color in between
By Marcus Scott
Buffalo Rising Magazine

Ribbons of chromaticity lick the walls of a small studio exhibit in the underbelly of the Allentown district, as a draping phosphorescent glow hits the walls and floor like a shaft of light slapping against a disco ball. Inside the four crème blushed walls are two men in glasses—one who is statuesque, with salt and pepper hair and a playful charm that borders on caricature and the other, who is stocky with champagne colored hair and a epigrammatic and monosyllabic dialogue that makes him all the more intriguing. Their names are Glenn E. Murray and Michael Mulley.
Only 12 years ago, during the post-grunge scene of 1997, Mulley, publisher of glossy zine ANGST at the time, opened the small art gallery and dubbed it the College Street Gallery Co-op with fellow Buffalo artistes. Already having his footing in photography and print, working with magazines and newspapers like Buffalo Spree Magazine, Artvoice and Canadian jazz magazine Coda, Mulley set out to add to the collective beauty of Buffalo. Once a tiny shack around the corner from its current sight, the College Street Gallery Co-op is pulling itself up from the bootstraps and is becoming a testimony to Mulley’s mission statement.
“I opened around the corner in this little teeny room in 1997, and in June 1998, when a space opened up, I moved here ever since. I have a really great room mate,” Mulley chuckles as he stares at the refined and pricey restaurant behind him. “I managed to be here 11 years.”
Giving local artistes the opportunity to showcase their work via susceptible venue allows more freedom of expression, speaking to the mind without words. And in this small studio, colors jump from the walls like a stuntman performing parkour, as the work of local artists such as photographer Robert Schultz and painter Candace Keegan, cake the walls with stunning visuals. Each work of art, rather it be a monochrome Polaroid print or runny splashes of greasepaint in a picture frame, speaks volumes from a metaphysical megaphone. He says, however, it wasn’t easy maintaining the gallery by himself and with their combined efforts Mulley and company the College Street Gallery Co-op, kept the hinges on the gallery’s doors greased, so other Buffalo residents could enjoy local art.
“It was sort of an economic reality, running out of artist,” Mulley said, looking around the studio, as the gala begins to start is exhibit. “I guess it cost more than it did 11 years ago.”
With an impressive range of fine art, the photographer says the art gallery tends to get more photography than any other art work; however more painting and sculpture work has been included in recent years. This time around, with more than 30 paintings and photos on the walls as well as a sculpture in the center of the gallery’s hard wood floor, the gallery’s nuance in Buffalo is burning bright—with art shows every four weeks.
Starting with a beautiful Evan Everhart piece, a smooth coffee table/mantelpiece-couch sculpture made of hardwood, sits under the draped lights like as if made as a shrine for the small gallery. What Mulley called great stuff in comparison to some of Everhart’s previous works, it looks like the gallery, as well as its art is taking on a new image: chic. Just look at the four-wall décor of the studio space, its surrounding neighbors, boxes of and bins of photos and painting for sale, and even the complementary entourage of budding artists greeting people at the doorways.
This time, the gallery is showing off an armada of Buffalo masterwork for the city’s culture connoisseurs. For example, there’s the work of Villa Maria College professor Francesco Amaya, an inveterate artist and regular at the gallery, whose work of four celebrated women in history is causing waves. The mural, created in black coal remnants, shows the women, including that of Eva Péron, standing side by side as if they were working the change the world, as they had decades ago. Other pictures are not as Glamorous and nerving as this on the right: A historical 1962 Ektachrome snapshot of an almost ethereal pair of legs in fishnets and high heels sits next to a series Buffalo landscape photos recently shot by Murray, which in turn, is next to a series of photos. This series of professional saturated black-and-white Kodak HIE infrared film that makes the room glow is known as “I Shot Lucy,” a cluster of attention-grabbing snapshots of local artiste and photographer Lucy Yau in an idyllic wood, shot two years ago. Sitting opposite of Amaya’s work, on the far left, is the colorfully-schematic Lolita piece by Candice Keegan, of a flaxen girl tasting the corn syrup of her large lollipop sucker.
Rather than showing off the supercilious and conceited monotone of wine-and-cheese art aristocracy, the gallery puts Buffalo illuminati in its display case, showing off a chronological and significant feel that can only be expressed by the cities residents. They are the storytellers and trendsetters of Buffalo, and through art, they are aid in holding on to the city’s history.
“You’ve got a photo from 1962, next to Glen who is a novice photographer next to Nick which is a 20-year-old motion photographer next to a 45-year-old carpenter next to a 57-year-old motion photographer. It’s amazing that we have that diversity and I think that’s really neat.”

If you are interested in seeing the edited version: http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/02/college-street-gallery-co-op.html#SlideFrame_0