In 1992 Keel moved to Minneapolis, where he met John Dunkley, a Native American of the Ojibwe Tribe. The two became friends, and Keel was inspired with the idea for a docudrama about a Swiss man who decides to explore living in the poorest county in the United States. Keel moved onto the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Badlands, South Dakota. There, with the help of the Oglala Sioux, he completed the film under the influence of fluid morphine, which had been prescribed for a dislocated shoulder he suffered during a basketball game at a local orphanage. "Greetings From Pine Ridge" marked his first directorial turn. That autumn, Keel started studying at University of Television and Film (formerly: HFF), Munich. Upon graduation three years later, Keel moved to Los Angeles. The city, in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots and the Northridge earthquake, was cheap and relatively empty. Keel wrote a few scripts and continued making art, but soon found himself overwhelmed and broke. Inspired by his observation that the privilege of talking about oneself seems to be reserved for famous people, Keel wrote All About Me, a candid questionnaire in twenty-five chapters about life and love, designed to help readers deepen their understanding of themselves. With over three million copies in print worldwide, other books in the All About series include All About Us, and All About Me – The Teenage Edition. Keel dedicated the next decade to his art. During this period, Keel's paintings and photography were exhibited in established galleries and museums throughout Europe and the United States. Speaking in an interview about his greatest influences he said, "As strange as it might seem, most of my inspiration comes from Los Angeles. You may find its irony, sadness, its absurd beauty and childish naïveté in my entire body of work. Here is where I think I will always create something new again and force myself to overcome the fear of trying something that I would be afraid of exploring in other hemispheres.” It was only after relocating to California that Keel started photographing in color, and that he discovered painting and printmaking. He collaborated with Don Weinstein, a printer who has worked with artists like Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon, and Helmut Newton, and who invited him to experiment with archival inks. A solo show at the Galerie zur Stockeregg marked Keel as the first artist to exhibit large-scale Imbue Prints.