This is Ozarks at Large. Now in its third year, The Medium and Springdale's Creative Exchange Fund supports local artists by providing financial support and a space to take creative risks. KUAF is partnering with The Medium to profile some of this year's 37 multidisciplinary artists. We'll hear about their art, their process, and what it means to be a creative in Northwest Arkansas in 2026.
Tyson Banks is a traditional darkroom photographer based in Siloam Springs. His project, "Portraits of Intimacy," explores close-up images of transgender Arkansans.
"My name is Tyson Banks. I'm a filmmaker, a photographer, and a creative. And I guess right now I'm an artist and I'm here at The Medium starting my artist residency. My project is a photo series that I'm doing on trans people. So I have an ongoing series project that I call Portraits of Intimacy, and it's these extreme close-ups of people's faces. But for my grant proposal for The Medium, I wanted to do a series on 10 trans people and have that as the focus for the project, for photography.
“I've played with cameras my whole life. I've always had a camera, video camera, but I got back into darkroom photography when I moved back here to Northwest Arkansas. And so I've been really just jumping in with darkroom and film photography. I just love how organic and nostalgic yet timeless and beautiful it renders people's faces. Like especially these close-ups that I do, it just looks so good on film in a very natural way that you don't get with digital. It doesn't feel harsh or artificial.
“So my proposal for this was to do my darkroom photography, my portraits, but on a scale that I've never done before. So I'm going to be printing 20-by-24-inch prints, which is the largest size of paper, cut paper, you can buy to do darkroom on. I've only done up to 11-by-14 before, in my darkroom bathroom at home. That's as big as I can get. I don't have enough space to do this big of a project. So when I wrote the grant for The Medium, I was really excited to be able to go into a creative direction, technical direction I haven't been able to do yet.
“And then as far as the subject matter, in some ways, it's kind of a political statement. I want to put a face to the trans community in Northwest Arkansas. These are our neighbors that are living down the street from us. And trans people right now are on the receiving end of a very high share of violence, political violence, intimate partner violence. They're one of the most marginalized communities in the U.S., even though they are one of the smallest communities. “So I just have a really big desire to be an ally as best I can and to raise awareness about the trans community in Northwest Arkansas. Hopefully raise some money for Intransitive, because they're doing amazing work, especially helping trans migrants of color in Northwest Arkansas. And so I just want to try to do something good with this opportunity that I have here at The Medium.
“My whole goal with this — it's not about finding photogenic people or making something really fine art or presenting people in a way that's not them. I want this to be authentically them. So I'm telling people, just wear whatever makes you feel powerful, what makes you feel like the most you, the most authentically you. And my goal is to create an environment that allows the walls to come down and for them to feel safe and comfortable. Because the whole idea of my Portraits of Intimacy, there's several layers. There's the initial photography itself, which is quite intimate, like a conversation between two people. And I'm very close with my lens. It's kind of intimidating to have a camera that close in your face. And so my hope and my goal is to create a space where people feel safe, people feel like they can just let their guard down and be themselves, because I want to show them just as they are. That's the whole goal.
“And then through the medium of the film, black and white film, black and white prints, my lighting is very classically inspired. It kind of — I want to say it necessarily elevates, because I think everyone's so beautiful, but it's like, just take a totally normal person and use the most beautiful lighting you can, and it just brings out the person's natural beauty, I think. And I'm always just so fascinated by people's faces and the landscape of the face. That's why I do these extreme close-ups in incredible detail. I'm shooting four-by-five film. So, yeah, I'm really excited for that.
“The art landscape in Northwest Arkansas is honestly really inspiring and really cool. And in some ways, I've always considered myself a creative, but not necessarily an artist. And then last year I somehow got this grant and I ended up in the Walton Arts Center art show last year. And so it's just been a really cool opportunity to kind of find myself running in this art circle all of a sudden. And Northwest Arkansas is small enough that, in some ways, it's quite a small circle, but Northwest Arkansas is also large enough to support the arts like this. So it's a really cool place. I lived in L.A. for nine years, and it's really easy to kind of just get lost. You're a very small fish in a very big pond. And I'm still a small fish, but the ponds are a lot smaller here. So it's in some ways easier to find those opportunities and get plugged in. And it's amazing having a place like The Medium that is so supportive of artists and the artist community in Northwest Arkansas. So it's been really great getting to be a part of it.
“I think I would just try to pitch this as an opportunity to see some really cool handmade photos that have been produced in a way that's over 100 years old. It's traditional darkroom. No computers have been used in the process. This is just silver halides suspended in an emulsion, capturing light at a moment in time, and then that becomes a photo. And it's totally handmade. So it's a chance for people to see a very old art form. And I hope that my work is accessible enough, because it's just nice photos of cool people. And I think it'll be really cool to see up close these large prints, because these are going to be really big prints from really high-quality film. You have to see it in person. Seeing it online won't do it justice at all.
“Photography is, in some ways, a very solo thing a lot of times. And so it feels kind of like, oh yeah, I'm doing this project by myself. But it's like, I couldn't have done this without so many people. So I'm just so thankful for everyone who supported me — my friend Dana, who helped me write the grant; my friend Brian, who's lent me so much gear; my sister and brother-in-law, for letting me set up in their bathroom with my darkroom. Thankful for The Medium supporting me. All the people who replied to my call for models, obviously couldn't do it without them. And so it is a very collaborative process at the end of the day. Couldn't have done it without so many people. I wouldn't be here without them."
Tyson Banks' exhibit, "Portraits of Intimacy," will be on display during an opening reception June 26, beginning at 6 p.m., at The Medium in downtown Springdale.
The Creative Callbacks series is produced by public radio KUAF in partnership with The Medium. Support for this project comes from the Tyson Family Foundation. The Medium and the Creative Exchange Fund are projects of the Creative Arkansas Community Hub and Exchange, or CACHE. For more about this project and for more about the 2025-2026 recipients, you can visit themedium.art/cfx.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
