A Legacy Cut Short: Honouring Keith Through Art & Action

Keith Church: A Life Stolen, A Legacy Unfinished

Who killed Keith? Why? How? 40 years on — help us honour his art, and find the truth.

My brother Keith left behind over 2,000 works of art — and one unanswered question: who took his life? Now, we’re fighting to honour his legacy — and find the truth.

On the night of July 9th, 1982, my brother, Keith Church—a gifted, kind, and deeply original artist—was murdered in a senseless act of violence. I was 15 years old at the time. Our family was shattered. My mother was bedridden for months. My pregnant sister wept for years. I watched the light fade from their eyes — and I could not make it right.

He was just 27.

Stabbed to death while cycling home, only steps from the Hoddesdon police station which was open and active at the time, his killer was never found. Conspiracy still shrouds his death. His life was stolen. His future, erased.

But his voice? That still speaks.

Keith left behind an extraordinary body of work — paintings, drawings, poems, and songs. Art that was vibrant, haunting, dreamlike, and deeply human. His vision was entirely his own: ahead of its time, emotionally raw, spiritually tuned. He was the quiet soul in the corner, watching the world and translating it into colour, shape, sound. Through his work, Keith created what we now recognise as the roots of a new artistic movement — Fracturism —decades before its time.

For 40 years, these works remained hidden. Unseen. Untouched.

Now, we’re asking for your help to bring them back into the world — and to make sure Keith’s story becomes more than just a tragedy. We want it to become a catalyst for healing, for learning, and for change.

WHY WE’RE RAISING FUNDS

This campaign isn’t just about preserving art—it’s about confronting the impact of knife crime, and honouring those lost in its wake. With your support, we aim to:

Frame, preserve, and archive Keith’s original works: paintings, writings, and recordings

-Produce 10+ books collecting his poems, letters, lyrics, drawings, and essays

-Develop public exhibitions across the UK, starting with a powerful launch at Lowewood Museum

-Bring Keith’s story into schools, using art to give young people a voice and a choice beyond violence

-Support national knife crime charities and victims’ families who are too often forgotten

A portion of all funds raised will go directly to community and arts organisations working to prevent youth violence and support families like ours.

THE ARTIST

Keith was a quiet observer with a wild, imaginative spirit. At just 12 years old, he painted a portrait of our mother that stunned his teachers. He later studied at Goldsmiths, but rejected formal paths in favour of his own, believing that art could not be institutionalised. He painted from what he called his “lonely room” in Broxbourne that allowed him to paint in “splendid isolation”— but his work touched on everything: humour, death, memory, people, life, spirituality, depression and love.

He created a unique visual language — Fracturism — that broke apart conventional ideas of time, space, and perception, and reassembled them into something dreamlike and searching. His art continues to reveal new depths every time we look at it.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Knife crime hasn’t gone away. In fact, it’s worse. And each life lost is not just a headline — it’s a family changed forever. We rarely talk about the long aftermath: the years of silence, the grief that keeps echoing. My family knows that pain too well.

But art can offer another kind of echo — one that brings meaning back into loss. One that turns memory into movement.

Through this project, we want to show that creativity can be a way forward—for young people, for grieving families, for communities broken by violence. That art doesn’t just express pain—it transforms it.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Every donation will help us:

•    Keep Keith’s work alive

•    Tell his story with dignity and depth

•    Reach young people before it’s too late

•    Honour the countless others lost to knife crime

No amount is too small. Whether you donate £5 or £500, you become part of something bigger—a collective act of remembrance and resistance.