Keith Ullrich was born in Pasadena in 1958. He met frequent collaborator Craig Rice when they were both students at Pasadena Community College. Ullrich went on to study literature and design at UC Berkeley, and art and sculpture at Chouinard School of Art. Ullrich and Rice participated in Pasadena's burgeoning art scene and became regulars at Pasadena Filmforum (now Los Angeles Filmforum) screenings in the 1970s and 80s, as well as filmmakers themselves, with Ullrich contributing sound to Rice's images.

Ullrich founded O Tela Group, a loose association of collaborative artists, in the early 1980s. His collages, artist books, assemblages, and music/sound works for film are in the archives of the Getty, The Museum of Modern Art, British Film Institute, Franklin Furnace, and in private collections. Although he has lived and worked in Northern California and the East Coast he prefers the San Gabriel Valley, where he now resides and continues to work on collage, assemblage, and alternate guitar tunings. He is a member of Collage Artists of America and South Pasadena Artist Studios (SOPA).