Born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1951, Keeling spent his younger years there before moving to Melbourne in 1970, to attend the Swinburne Film and Television School.
He returned to Tasmania in 1973 after completing his studies at Swinburne, and commenced a new course at the Tasmanian School of Art.
[1] David has acted as Chairman and Board Member of Contemporary Art Services Tasmania, and Artbank, Sydney.
One critic has written: "Through a David Keeling frame, the tensions between change and continuity, survival and flourishing, interiors and the outside, a close pathway to an opening or an edge, are so often evident.
[4] In 2015 The University of Tasmania held a survey exhibition titled David Keeling: Inside Out, which featured both painting and sculpture, spanning over three decades of the artist’s career.