Not your average teeth cleaning: Park Sloper to exhibit art in dental waiting room

Grand opening of Gallery 265 in unlikely venue

June 4, 2013 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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It’s been six months, so you stop in at Fine Dental New York for a cleaning. It’s one of those mundane things you have to do.

But when you enter the waiting room at the Midtown suite, you’re transported, finding yourself instead cutting your teeth on some unexpected fine art while you wait for the hygienist to emerge and call your name.

That’s the experience that awaits for the lucky “patients” of Gallery 265, an innovative collaboration between the dental professionals at Fine Dental and entrepreneur Erik Sheets, the exhibit’s new permanent curator. Sheets is a Brooklyn-based artist who runs a weekly figure drawing class at Brooklyn Art Space in Gowanus.

Sheets told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “I had gone in for a checkup and approached [my dentist] about his bare walls and [asked] if he was interested in acquiring some art. The conversation led to his gallery dreams, and here we are today, with his second reception and official grand opening.”

The waiting room-turned-gallery has featured paintings by artists like Lore Dore in the past, but under the direction of master illustrator Sheets, the space will evolve to feature a rotating cast of artists’ curated work.

The first in a string of upcoming creators to feature their work in the inviting space will be Sheets himself, a Brooklyn father who will show a selection of sculptural figural drawings on reclaimed maps and other vintage surfaces.

The show is titled “A Figural Odyssey,” and it will launch with an opening reception on Thursday, June 6, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

“The collection of drawings featured in ‘A Figural Odyssey’ are sculptural figure drawings done on various vintage surfaces. Because I work in pastels and charcoal, the surface of the page is essential to my joy of drawing. I have discovered that vintage books have amazing paper because they were designed to last over time. Early atlases, anatomy books, and architectural renderings add an interesting contrast to my sculptural approach to drawing,” Sheets told the Eagle.

It’s not your typical gallery, but it’s one that will offer a range of new experiences for the usually-nervous folks waiting to get their plaque scraped and their molars crowned. Sure beats a dingy old fish tank and back issues of “Golf Digest.”

It’s enough to almost make you excited to have a cavity filled. Almost.

The June 6 opening will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Fine Dental is located at 265 Madison Ave., 3rd Floor.