Kevin Paul Hasn’t Lost that Tactile Feeling

Self-described ‘mall rat’ turns from retail to creating art

Surrounded by his recent works hanging on the white walls of his spacious Preston Hollow home, Kevin Paul, a retail industry veteran turned artist, smiled.

“I was a mall rat,” he said, explaining how he’s worked in retail all his life, moving up from working in stores to merchandising, display, and eventually store design. “I worked for Mervyn’s and Cherokee, then Blockbuster Music and Video.” 

Paul moved to Dallas with Blockbuster in the late ’90s. 

“I think in 2005, we built 500 stores in a year,” he said. “So, I understand that business really well — the corporate machine.” 

But the artist in him couldn’t take the grind forever.

“Any retailer who loves it like I do eventually wants to open a store,” he said. “It’s like a rite of passage.” 

But his Flip Gallery boutique was ahead of its time in the Bishop Arts District of 2007. “I would flip the creative concept of the store three or four times a year. I had a great time, but it did not put money in my pocket.” 

After the financial crash of ’08, Paul returned to corporate design, spending a dozen years with The Integer Group, where he built a store design division.

“I spun off a small agency, Sky Bench, that was just focused on store design,” he said. “Now I’m semi-retired and in a place where I can do the things I want to do.”

I recently attended Paul’s crowded and successful first solo exhibition at the gallery inside the Aloft Dallas Downtown — an impressive feat for an artist who has only been working on his art full-time for four months.

“I’m doing this to have a great time and follow my passion and see what happens,” he said. “Friends are telling friends, and it’s organically growing. I was merchandising and painting at the same time. I think that’s an interesting take for me in the art world. As long as I’ve got forward momentum, I’m going to just keep going.”

His plans include working with children.

“As a society, we are just so digital, and we just don’t get dirty. We don’t get in the mud at all, and we’ve lost that tactile kind of thing,” Paul said. “The thing about children’s art is that it’s always about the size you can put on the refrigerator. I’d love to start a painting with children and give them a big brush and a big bucket of paint, help them with the abstract, then frame it. The family then has a piece they can keep in their home or give as a gift. It’s a memory — a point in time that isn’t a photograph.”

He also intends to do more shows, event planning, and merchandising.

“I want to merchandise with my retail eye in event planning,” Paul said. “Whatever doors open, I will walk through to bring my different angle on what’s happening today.”