In attendance at the reception himself, improvising on an electric guitar outside the building’s entrance, Sherbert appeared nervous but made himself available for a brief interview. He said he caught the art bug from an early age. “I was four years old. I remember my first exposure where I broke the rules, self-expressed and the teacher liked it, and showed it.  I was like, ‘Oh, hallelujah, Sign me up.’” 

He told of the joy of being placed in charge of the front page art of the Virginia Commonwealth University student newspaper and then an interaction he had with one of the most famous artists of the last century while pursuing a story for the Commonwealth Times. 

He found none other than Andy Warhol inspecting his own work at an exhibition after a press conference. He asked Warhol whether painting for the sake of self-expression was “dead.” Warhol’s answer? 

“His response was ‘Oh, no, that's not right. Because’--and he talked to his dealer who's sitting next to him—‘We're doing real good, aren't we? We're making lots of money.’” 

Sherbert said he found this not to be a real answer, but that he said he takes from it today the hope that art created not from AI but from human hands would always be relevant and in demand. 

The show consists of many large paintings that incorporate images of celebrities, often placing them in sinister settings or contrasting their apparent obliviousness with more disturbing images in split screen. There are also many vividly transformed everyday objects ranging from the tiny cell phones of the early to mid 2000s to the thick-screened 1080 resolution TVs of 15 years ago. Sherbert paints landscapes on their surfaces. 

The exhibit will be on view at the Art Station until October 31. Hours are 10am to 4pm, Monday through Thursday and 10am to 3pm on Fridays.