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Keith Waller is an artist and designer with an unusual take on life that is reflected in his art, his career has been extraordinarily varied and anybody would be hard-pressed not to call him eclectic. He is probably best known for his creation of the Tesco logo and for his cartoons and abstract art. He was a cartoonist for OZ magazine and contributor to The Tate Modern, Liverpool, Consumer Culture exhibition with Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. He has an honours degree in art and design from The University of Brighton, and has worked as a fine artist for 45 years. His work has been extensively exhibited including The Tate Modern, Liverpool and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt.

Our Story

My grandfathers house in South London was bombed during the blitz in The Second World War.

By the time I was born in the 1950,s we had benefited from the widespread government rebuilding subsidies after the war. My grandfather and father built two new homes near Dartford where I was born.

With their increasing affluence in the 1950s and 1960s boom we moved to country homes in Berkshire and Dorset and that is the beginning of the story.

The 1960s were kind to my generation bringing wealth, activity, and health with the hope of improving the world. Along with this we created a huge increase in consumer spending and new popular culture and the defining movement in Modern Art “Pop Art”. Beatlemania and The Vietnam War had become the backdrop to my …... upbringing.

My first art exhibit was in 1975, Hyde Park Railings, London, where I had a street traders license to sell my paintings. I trained as a printer, we produced millions of prints for advertising and food in the Pop Art idiom. I co-designed the Tesco logo, drawing the blue waves underneath the typography, on a Dorset beach. Art, print and society had been very lucky to me  “ Work hard and be lucky, ….”  

My father was a fan of Rene Magritte, the Surrealist painter, and Hieronymus Bosch. Mother was a fan of no-one but a believer in Germaine Greer and the 1960s counter culture. Together they gave me a love of pop culture and mysterious pictures, and my own art of abstract landscapes.

As Jane Fonda said “ I like being over the hill because there's a whole new landscape.  

It takes a long time to become young."

After Life by Spike.

There are those who know, and those who don’t. At least, that’s what they say. I don’t trust the  ones who say they don’t know; they’re the ones to watch. If you observe carefully enough you’ll  see a person’s eyes flicker as they pretend not to know, catching at a fleeting impression, an  intimation of something unpleasant. I have time to think about all this, lying here in my ancient bed. ‘Going home to be looked after,’  the hospital porter had said encouragingly as I was wheeled out. Being sent home to die, more like  it. I didn’t mind really. I’m curious. Most of the time. I’ve spent the best part of my life trying not to have any beliefs. It’s been a satisfaction to watch the  disquiet appear on a fresh face when I tell them this. At dinner parties there’s always someone keen  to explain what they believe (what they mean is ‘what they know’), no matter how ludicrous or  unfashionable. I nod, politely. They think I’m on board. They believe me too to be a Catholic, a  Muslim, a New Age Spiritualist. I have that way about me; nondescript, an easy receptacle for the  infirmities of others. Eventually they pause, wanting an appreciative remark. I say lightly, matter  of factly: I try not to have any beliefs.  Surely they misheard. I might as well have said: I try not to murder other people’s pets. But now my most private uncertainty is being tested. This is my punishment. Can one stay curious  when things get dark? For instance, there’s annihilation. That’s not something anyone would  enjoy, I can vouch for it. No wonder we’ve made up so many fairy stories to avoid thinking about  that.  And now, as I ponder these things, the light fades and another face, another body enters my room.  At first, the way the clothes and hair are these days it is difficult to discern the age or the gender,  though certainly there is flesh and blood. After a moment I see it is a young woman. It makes  sense when you think how the room has been decorated. The ferns on the window sill.  She steps forward, pulls back the covers. (Not mine, thankfully, not my eiderdown nor my horsehair  blanket; they remain undisturbed). Her sheets are Egyptian cotton. She hesitates for a moment.  Clearly she is one who tries hard not to believe. Then she rolls herself onto me, her plump hipbones  sinking into my insubstantial frame. She shivers, contracts a little.  ‘No,’ she murmurs. ‘I do not believe in ghosts.

Our Thanks To:  

Spike for After Life, Jane Fonda, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Google, Gmail, Ebay, Hotmail, Amazon, Yahoo, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Netflix.