Opening Reception: May 2nd from 5-8 PM
About Portrait of Buffalo II
As CEPA Gallery celebrates its 50th anniversary, it is reviving one of its earliest projects: Portrait of Buffalo. First undertaken in the late 1970s, the original Portrait of Buffalo was a photographic survey that captured the city’s people and places during a period of significant upheaval. Four decades later after an economic resurgence and a growth in population, Buffalo tells a different story. Portrait of Buffalo II, focuses on the individuals, communities, and businesses that embody Buffalo in the 21st-century. In order to document this cultural change, CEPA has commissioned six talented photographers to explore Buffalo through their unique lenses.
Artist Names, Descriptors, Websites:
- Tiffany Gaines, Documenting Downtown/Elmwood/Allentown, @_itstiffanyyy
- DJ Carr, Documenting Masten/Ellicott, @djcarrr
- Pat Cray, Documenting Fillmore/Lovejoy , @yungpainkiller
- Jake Amadori, Documenting South Buffalo, @jake_amadori
- Andrea Wenglowskyj, Documenting North Buffalo, @andreawenglowskyj
- Tito Ruiz, Documenting the West Side, @tru_ink
Co-Curated by Sophie Barner and Robert George
Curatorial Statement:
Buffalo is a city that takes pride in its underdog identity. In recent years, narratives of economic resurgence and artistic renaissance have taken hold. But, like many post-industrial cities, these stories often flatten lived experience. They can edge toward a fixation on urban decay or an uncritical celebration of progress. Portrait of Buffalo II was built to resist both. It continues CEPA’s commitment to preserving the history of the city through our archive while offering space for artists to present Buffalo as they know it now.
This project doesn’t offer a singular story about the city. Instead, it presents a set of perspectives, each rooted in a neighborhood, shaped by personal connection, and expressed by the artists. We selected six photographers not to represent Buffalo broadly but to reflect it specifically. Their styles, their relationships to place, and the people they chose to photograph speak to the deep complexity of a city still very much in flux.
This is a moment when Buffalo is changing fast but not evenly. Some neighborhoods are rapidly transforming due to new investment, while others remain shaped by long-standing disinvestment and segregation. As communities are priced out of areas they’ve called home for generations, questions of visibility, voice, and cultural erasure grow more urgent.
Portrait of Buffalo II isn’t objective. It isn’t comprehensive. But it is careful. It asks what it means to look closely at a place and to care about what you see. These photographs push back against simplified narratives, offering instead a city that is layered, contradictory, and alive.
Portrait of Buffalo II is supported by the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, the New York Council on the Arts, Erie County, and NCAComp, inc.
