I've built my own helper function for this to make it work.

//Fixes images not rendering after solution build
        public static EPiImageGalleryImageCollection GetImageList(PageReference pageLink, string property)
        {
            try
            {
                var page = EPiServer.DataFactory.Instance.GetPage(pageLink);
                EPiImageGalleryProperty galleryProperty = page.Property[property] as EPiImageGalleryProperty;
                return galleryProperty == null ? null : galleryProperty.ConvertXhtmLtoImageCollection(galleryProperty.XhtmlString.ToString());
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new Exception(ex.Message, ex);
            }
        }