Robert Andy Coombs

I’m a disabled queer photographer working across portrait, Polaroid, and street photography to explore desire, caregiving, bodily autonomy, and visibility. Born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I started taking photos in middle school and got serious about portraiture by high school. While earning my BFA in photography at Kendall College of Art and Design, I sustained a spinal cord injury in a gymnastics accident. After a year of recovery, I returned and completed my degree in 2013.

My experience as a gay man and full-time wheelchair user is the foundation of my practice. My work confronts how queer disabled people are erased from dominant conversations around sex, beauty, autonomy, and public space. Whether I’m staging a portrait, capturing a fleeting street scene, or making a raw Polaroid, I use the camera to claim agency and author my own image—on my own terms.

Each format I work in serves a distinct purpose. My portrait work is composed and intentional, sometimes sensual, sometimes political, always personal. My Polaroids are raw and immediate, offering unfiltered windows into moments of intimacy and care. Polaroids hold a unique place in queer history as trophies of survival—private moments made public only on our terms, without middlemen or risk of exposure. These instant, one-of-a-kind images allow me to preserve queer lives and desires in their authentic, imperfect reality.

My street photography documents the everyday experience of moving through a world that often isn’t built for bodies like mine, asserting disabled queer presence in public life. As a wheelchair user, my vantage point is lower—at crotch height. I navigate a landscape of bulges, butts, and dicks. As a gay man, I love this perspective. My images show you what I see: the raw, intimate, often overlooked reality of queer desire and presence in public spaces.

I don’t crop out my wheelchair. I don’t hide my caregivers. I don’t sanitize my sex. These aren’t side notes to my identity—they are the substance of it.

Photography gives me control over how I’m seen. As both subject and author, I shift the gaze from voyeurism to self-determination. Critics have noted how my work reframes care as power, transforms medical equipment into a language of eroticism, and challenges the ableist myth of independence. I’ll take that.

This practice isn’t just about making images—it’s about reshaping visibility. It’s about being seen, fully and unapologetically, as someone who was never supposed to be in the frame. And putting myself there anyway.

I earned my MFA in Photography from Yale in 2020 and received a United States Artists Fellowship in 2022. My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Queer Lens at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and featured in The Cut, Momus, Cultured, and Miami New Times. I’ve lectured at Harvard University and served as faculty at the University of Miami.

A young man with short hair and a beard, featuring a prominent scar on his forehead, looking directly at the camera. He has tattoos on his neck and is wearing a light-colored shirt.

CV

Education

  • MFA, Photography — Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2020)

  • BFA, Photography — Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, MI (2013)

Solo Exhibitions

  • 2024 – Robert Andy Coombs: No Content Warning, ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles, CA (June 14 – November 9)

  • 2022 – Robert Andy Coombs: Fire Island Pines, BOFFO Artist Residency Exhibition, Fire Island Pines, NY (June 25)

  • 2021 – Robert Andy Coombs: Notions of Care, Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU, Miami, FL (August 14 – November 7)

  • 2015 – The Secret Society of Disabled People, DisArt Festival, Grand Rapids, MI

Group Exhibitions

  • 2025 – DON’T LOOK NOW: A Defense of Free Expression, Art at a Time Like This, New York, NY (October 10 – 25)

  • 2025 – Queer Lens: A History of Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (June 17 – September 28)

  • 2025 – Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE, Durden & Ray, Los Angeles, CA (March 22)

  • 2024 – Gorgeousness: A Summer Pride Show, HeyBenrubi Gallery, New York, NY

  • 2024 – I’m Sorry, This Space Is Reserved, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark

  • 2024 – BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY), Traveling Exhibition

  • 2023 – Disrupt and Resist, Mason Exhibitions, Arlington, VA

  • 2023 – Beholding Relations, Unit London (Online)

  • 2022 – PURE JOY: 14 Disabled Visual and Performance Artists, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY (June 30 – August 13)

  • 2022 – Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability, RISD Museum, Providence, RI (February 1 – October 9)

  • 2022 – Pride Photo Foundation Outdoor Exhibition — CripFag, Amsterdam / Traveling

  • 2021 – Reframing History / 35 Chapters, Photo Vogue Festival (BASE Milano & Online), Milan, Italy (November 18 – 21)

  • 2021 – Refraction, Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta, Malta (September 10 – October 24)

  • 2021 – It’s Much Louder Than Before, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA (August 14 – September 18)

  • 2021 – Hindsight 2020, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

  • 2019–2020 – Touching History: Stonewall 50, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA (October 12, 2019 – March 17, 2020)

  • 2016 – ELEVATE Fashion Show: Hybrid Structures, DisArt & SiTE:LAB, Grand Rapids, MI

  • 2015 – DisArt Festival, Grand Rapids, MI

  • 2012 – ArtPrize 2012 — Disabilities and Sexuality, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI (2-D Juried Award Finalist)

Residencies & Commissions

  • NYC Tourism Pride Diaries Commission, New York, NY (2023)

  • BOFFO Fire Island Residency, Fire Island Pines, NY (2022)

  • AARP — National campaign commission (2019)

  • Gayletter Magazine — Editorial commissions (Reno Gold, 2021; Fantasia Royale Gaga, 2022)

  • DisArt Festival — Multi-year commissions including fashion shows, festival documentation (2015–2018)

Publications & Press

  • Momus — Erin O’Leary, “For Pleasure and Pictures: Robert Andy Coombs, His Critics, and the Language of Ableism” (2025). Link

  • Getty Publications — Queer Lens: A History of Photography (exhibition catalog, 2025)

  • CARLA (Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles) — “Robert Andy Coombs at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries,” by Philip Anderson (Issue 38, 2024)

  • LAist — “Robert Andy Coombs: No Content Warning” (2024)

  • LAist — “Best Things To Do This Week in LA & SoCal” (includes your ONE show, June 2024)

  • ONE Archives at the USC Libraries — “Robert Andy Coombs: No Content Warning” (curatorial text, 2024)

  • ONE Archives — “Opening Reception: Robert Andy Coombs” (program page, 2024)

  • Campus Reform — “USC features erotic LGBT exhibit by ‘queer and disabled photographer’” (news write-up, 2024)

  • NYC Tourism — “Pride Diary: Robert Andy Coombs” (feature by Adam Eli, 2023)

  • MeCreates — “Celebrating Pride: Photography from the LGBTQ+ Community” (2023 spotlight including your work)

  • Miami New Times — “CripFag: Robert Andy Coombs Photographs the Intersection of Disability, Queerness, and Sex” (2022)

  • RISD Museum, Manual Issue 17: “Double Take: Robert Andy Coombs” (2022)

  • 1969 Gallery — “Pure Joy” press release (2022)

  • Vogue / Photo Vogue Festival — “Reframing History: The Disabled Body” (2021)

  • Vogue / Photo Vogue — “Reframing History • Photo Vogue Festival 2021” (2021)

  • Cultured Magazine — “Photographer Robert Andy Coombs Captures the Lust of Life” (2021)

  • ArtDaily — “Frost Art Museum FIU opens the first solo museum exhibition of photographer Robert Andy Coombs” (2021)

  • World Red Eye — “Frost Art Museum FIU Exhibition Celebration with Artists Pepe Mar & Robert Andy Coombs” (2021)

  • Pride Source / Between The Lines — “Making Care Sexy: Michigan Native Documents Intersection of Sexuality and Disability” (2021)

  • Talk Art (podcast) — “Robert Andy Coombs” (Season 8, Ep. 10; interview, 2021)

  • Frost Art Museum — “A Conversation with Robert Andy Coombs” (program page, 2021)

  • Frost Art Museum — “Exhibition Celebration” program page (2021)

  • Frost Art Museum — “Robert Andy Coombs: Notions of Care” (curatorial exhibition page, 2021)

  • University of Zurich — “Künstlergespräch mit Robert Andy Coombs” (artist talk listing, 2021)

  • Vulture / New York Magazine — Jerry Saltz essay “Pleasure, Helplessness, Fear, and Taboo” (2020)

  • Palm Springs Art Museum — “Touching History: Stonewall 50” (exhibition page listing, 2019–2020)

  • Popular Publicity — “Palm Springs Art Museum ‘Touching History: Stonewall 50’… features Robert Andy Coombs” (2019 press release)

  • NBC Palm Springs — “Palm Springs Art Museum Helps Kick Off Pride Weekend” (news item referencing Touching History, 2019)

  • The Rapidian — “Hard Femme brings new dimension to gender issues” (2018 review/exhibition coverage)

  • The Rapidian — “SiTE:LAB collaborates with DisArt on ArtPrize entry ‘Hybrid Structures’” (2016)

  • Associated Press / Washington Times — “Grand Rapids festival spotlights artists with disabilities” (2015)

  • The Rapidian — “Photographer focuses on empowered disability presence during DisArt Festival” (2015)

  • Revisions of Grandeur — “Grand Edits Update: The Fabulous Robert Andy Coombs” (2015)

  • Revisions of Grandeur — “Grand Edits with Bob Coombs: Revising Life as a Quadriplegic” (2015)

  • The Rapidian — “Hard Femme art exhibit to examine gender issues” (2013)

  • Hyperallergic — “Slimming Down the Short Lists: A Look at 10 ArtPrize Finalists” (2012)

  • Big Rapids News — “Kendall makes long-term commitment to ArtPrize” (2012)

  • Samantha Macy blog — “Robert Coombs” (short interview, 2012)

Lectures, Artist Talks & Public Programs

  • 2025 — University of Pennsylvania — Guest Lecture

  • 2024 — Yale School of Art — Visiting Artist Lecture (Belonging at Yale Series)

  • 2024 — UCLA — Guest Artist Lecture

  • 2024 — ONE Archives, Los Angeles — Opening Talk for No Content Warning (in conversation with Dr. Cyle Metzger)

  • 2023 — Yale School of Art — Visiting Artist Lecture

  • 2023 — Otis College of Art and Design — Artist Talk

  • 2022 — UCLA — Guest Artist Lecture

  • 2022 — University of Miami — Public Lecture

  • 2022 — BOFFO Fire Island Residency — “Monday Talks: Robert Andy Coombs”

  • 2022 — RISD Museum — “Six Photographers on Care” Roundtable

  • 2021 — Otis College of Art and Design — Artist Talk

  • 2021 — University of Zurich — Künstlergespräch / Artist Talk

  • 2021 — Frost Art Museum FIU — Notions of Care Exhibition Conversations (Oct 9 & 27)

  • 2021 — Photo Vogue Festival, Milan — Panel: “The Disabled Body—Romance, Intimacy, Sex, and Isolation”

  • 2020 — Yale School of Art — Visiting Artist Lecture

  • 2020 — Harvard University — Artist Talk

  • 2019 — Yale School of Art — Visiting Artist Lecture

  • 2015 — DisArt Festival, Grand Rapids — Gallery Talk: The Secret Society of Disabled People

Teaching & Academic Appointments

  • Lecturer, Photography — University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL (2021–2024)

  • Lecturer, Photography — Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2020)

Collections

  • RISD Museum, Providence, RI

  • ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles, CA

  • Museum of Disability History at The Viscardi Center

  • Tom of Finland Foundation