Words :: Feet Banks
Dave Barnes is a visual artist, but at the moment he’s sipping whiskey
and pondering the other senses, especially sound.
“I think it was the Romans,” he says, “in battle they would drill these
3-millimetre holes into little wooden beads and shoot them at the enemy.
The sound of these beads whizzing and zinging past their heads; it made
everyone reassess their commitment to the cause. The Romans didn’t
have to hit you to win, they just had tomake you think they could.”
The art of psychological warfare, but Barnes is not finished yet. “Or
rabbits,” he says. “I have painted a lot of rabbits, but never really put
much thought into anything other than how they look. Rabbits are almost
silent their entire lives, until the end when they scream this piercing
bloody wail, like a banshee. It’s their evolutionary defense, it makes you
not want to kill another one...”
Rabbits, mountain bikers, zombies, avalanches
-
Dave Barnes has been the
go-to
Mountain Life
illustrator since issue #1 (he even sketched an option
78
MLCM
FALL/WINTER2016
