a story. To make the artists into iconic archetypes that embody their persona and their practice. To not only highlight each unique individual, but also to create a platform that connects them to the world. Critic Naomi Lev wrote that Alba's pictures add a theatrical dimension to concepts of identity, blurring the hard boundaries of "difference" into something more slippery and beautiful. Seph Rodney devised different categories for all 60 portraits on view in at 8th Floor Gallery, New York City (December 2017) remarking how "One appreciates how Alba tenderly holds each of them up to a light, turning them this way and that to find what kinds of refractions best make them come to life." The Supper Club The project began in 2012. On July 2, 2013, Alba launched The Supper Club on Recess Analog, a non-profit New York studio and exhibition organization. As of 2019 the seven-year project has brought together over 60 contemporary artists of color, along with a cross-section of collectors and scholars, for intimate dinners and portraiture. Over 25 dinners, have been attended in New York City, many personally prepared by Alba. She partnered with two different arts organizations in New York City to create the dinners where invited contemporary artists of color could lay down their burdens and engage in meaningful conversation about art, life, pop culture, politics and race. While the portraits created visual meaning – and revised the overwhelming whitewashing of American culture in media – the dinners were where the actual lived experiences of these artists of color could come to the forefront and be transformed into meaningful social and cultural criticism. Initially invited as subjects of the portraits, the dinners began to be organized around invited hosts who would help to create the guest list, provide the prompts for discussion and guide the conversation. In January 2019 the first venture in taking The Supper Club outside of New York City came to fruition as The University of Texas Department of Art & Art History hosted the entire portrait series and additional dinners were held in Austin. Also in 2019 with publication of the book, Elia Alba: The Supper Club (Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and Hirner Verlag), a unique historical documentation of African-American, Latin American, African, South Asian and Caribbean artists as a collective group was created. Participating artists include: Abigail DeVille, Alejandro Guzman, Alex Rivera, Angel Otero, Arnaldo Morales,