Keith Ball and I showed over twenty times together from 1987 – 2005.
He was a founder member of RAG in 1986 and willingly contributed his many talents in setting up RAG’s Exhibitions. He became a curator of unusual spaces until he set up the Commercial Gallery in Commercial Street, East London and then under the name of Commercial Too before the gallery finally closed. As a writer and thinker he founded Everything magazine along with another RAG member Steve Rushton which at first was supported by RAG and then, having managed to gain funding, became an independent and important art publication.
He was a lovely and kind man with a wry and informed sense of humour but in some other ways could be difficult to get to know. However I did get to know him and was very glad of it. He was always ready to make fun of the hypocritical art establishment and was part outsider and part insider – a position he loved to be in.
When I went to his wake I realised the extent of his very diverse friendships which included people from most walks of life, most of whom I had never met or knew. This was reflected in his diverse art practices which were consistently underpinned by a keen intellect and understanding of life, the world and indeed Everything.
His favourite strap line was: “One day this may all make sense – we can only hope not”.
Keith was born 16 October 1955 in Cottingham near Hull. He was the youngest of three children, with an older brother, Ralph, and sister Lesley. He grew up in Brough, a village 10 miles west of Hull. Stephen Williams
Image: Remedy (Single Chamber) 1993
A large number of used (Rosehip) teabags were used to build, inside a wet and cold cellar, a much larger than life, super-sized teabag which was plunged in a puddle outlined by a linear metal strip on the floor. Simple measures – a change of function, scale and the multiplication of the one-fold element, created an unexpected context which brought to mind the inconsistencies frequently met whilst looking inside a logically shaped structure of everyday life. The impossibility of measures taken by people to ward off the inevitability of death – the large teabag in the cellar being also reminiscent of a house or a tombstone. Professor Andrzej Syska
Do you Speak English: International Artists Centre, Poznan, Poland, a group show curated by Stephen Williams with works by: Keith Ball, Almuth Tebbenhoff, Peter Kennard, Katharine Meynell, Helen Underwood and Stephen Williams