James Kung was never alone. At his childhood home in Taiwan, he shared space with his parents and grandmother. He slept in the living room with his mother. He did his homework as she napped. When he crept into the kitchen to make a midnight snack, his grandmother peered over his shoulder. Home was where expectations, opinions, and perceptions molded him into an adult. Then, adulthood yanked him from the roots and sent him 7,800 miles away where he flourished inside a new palace in a new place.
The 29-year-old photographer’s 660-square-foot downtown Dallas industrial studio—the palace, as he calls it—is warm, colorful, and quirky. It’s filled with framed art prints by Dallas artists such as Gino Dal Cin, photography books, issues of Kinfolk magazine, and miniature figures that are arranged in unexpected areas.
“It’s an ADHD nightmare,” Kung says, laughing. “I work very well under stimulation. My home is eclectic and very colorful. I’m very comfortable saying that this really reflects who I am as a person.”
On the window panel, a pinky-sized Lady Liberty shows some leg to a miniature figurine broadcast news team. Shirtless muscular men in Santa hats climb a rope alongside the entertainment center. Sunlight blasts through four large windows, illuminating a cozy reading nook equipped with a Japanese tatami mat. The concrete entryway wall is a shrine of instant film portraits of Kung’s friends. His home is organized chaos.
In 2021, Kung launched “My Palace in Dallas,” a creative project that marries interior photography and portraiture with Q&A interviews to give readers a peek into the character and homes of notable Dallas creatives.
He wants to introduce curators, gallerists, comedians, actors, ceramicists, artists and musicians. His subjects include Dallas Contemporary executive director Carolina Alvarez-Mathies, ceramic artist Marcello Andres Ortega, fashion designer Crespatrick de los Reyes, and muralist Mariell Guzman. Each of them opened their doors and allowed Kung to bring his 12-year-old Canon 70D to document their most intimate spaces, their homes.
A well-established creative typically goes hand-in-hand with a well-curated home, Kung says. “My Palace in Dallas” isn’t concerned with a home’s size or its ownership. Kung is looking for personality, to show how people live and create.
“I need character,” he says. “I want it to feel like you exploded in the place. It needs to have a good bone structure and then you fill it out accordingly, very well.”
Kung landed in Dallas on December 19, 2017. In six years, he has gone from a frightened boy with two suitcases, a duffle bag, and a F-1 visa to a fixture in the Dallas creative scene. Home was reimagined once he embraced the luxury of solitude.
“I really like the idea of ‘home’ and it’s a very, very important concept,” the photographer says. “Home is a place that I can be most comfortable. It’s where I can really be and not do anything. I get to be a piece of shit. I get to be a blob. I get to be as productive as I can. I get to be as manic as I can. I get to be as lazy as I can. I can be whatever I want.”
He blossomed in solitude. You wouldn’t know it if you saw Kung with his friends, but he’s an introvert. His social savviness was a necessary adaptation, he says.
“In Dallas, you’re living in a very extrovert-rewarding social structure,” Kung says. “You just have to adapt. There’s no easy way to go about it. You have to put yourself out there, you have to bite the bullet.”
Expendable income afforded him a space without prying eyes, but if he wanted to feed his creative yearnings, Dallas required more.
“The creative circle of Dallas, as a city, is something that gives back as much as you’re willing to give it to them, how much energy you’re willing to put into them,” Kung says. “You will find your people, you will find your circle, but it just takes a lot more effort than it would in LA or New York.”
The photographer goes on social benders from Fridays to Sundays. His weekend calendar is crammed with gallery openings, dinner parties, and pop-ups. He frequents Oak Cliff hotspots like Tiny Victories, La Reunion, Le Sol House, and Wayward Coffee, where you can find him sipping an iced vanilla latte, whole milk only.
From Monday through Thursday, he’s in his palace. The apartment is more than shelter. It is a recharging station, a space where he can shed the exterior and just be.
“I am no longer being perceived,” Kung says. “That’s what makes this apartment so special for me, a place that I can feel that nobody will be watching me. I get to have a place that I can close up and not be perceived physically by anything, by anybody.”
“My Palace in Dallas” is inspired by Los Angeles photographer Justin Chung’s “Faculty Department,” an ongoing worldwide study on creatives, their studios, and living spaces. Kung found a passion for interior design by curating his first apartment with inspiration from YouTube channels Never Too Small and Apartment Therapy. He wanted to nurture this curiosity-turned-passion by documenting his closest friends before his time in the U.S. ran out. He wanted to document who they are when they are not performing.
“There’s probably hundreds of pieces written about their character, their title, or they were approached for a profile because of what they do, so why the hell would they want to do another one just because I asked them,” Kung says. “What’s special about my piece?”
“My Palace in Dallas” strips subjects from their labels. The humanizing entries make Dallas’ artist approachable, Kung says. Their homes are just like everybody else’s. They have heirloom rugs, mismatched dinnerware, and piles of old band t-shirts. In these spaces, their dreams, fears, successes and insecurities coexist freely.
Dallas is home now for Kung. He’s a permanent resident in the U.S. and has become a fixture in Dallas’ creative fabric.
“I feel like I am part of the big DFW family now instead of the guy that flew in six years ago,” he says.
When asked what’s next for “My Palace in Dallas,” Kung points to a white clipboard clipped onto a metal hook right behind his 1970’s IKEA compact dining table. The top paper reads, “‘My Palace in Dallas’ Book Plan.”
“That’s my shortlist of the publishers that I want to reach out to, that’s my vision board,” Kung says. “Big dreams.”
Dallas publishing house Deep Vellum is on the list next to Provo, Utah’s Actual Source.
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