Manhattan Blues was photographed in a Lower Manhattan studio at the beginning of Winter 2018. During this time Coombe was participating in a residency program with the Queensland College of Art and NARS Gallery, Brooklyn. The residency proved to be transformative for both Coombe’s personal life and artistic practice. It was only through being alone on the other side of the world from her close family and friends would she realise that her strength had always lied within. The series references Coombe’s attitude to herself at a time where she relied on her, then-boyfriend, for direction in her life. It was only during a period of self-isolation in 2020 when Coombe
rediscovered the images taken of herself, vulnerable yet with so much power and potential. Through a process of solarising and inverting the colours of the image, symbolic of inner reflection and growth, Coombe pared something that once meant nothing to her into something that transcended everything she was once led to believe.
