About Duel

John Williams, aka Duel, was born in Melbourne and grew up in the inner city.

His career as a graffiti artist began in the mid 1980s, painting trains and walls around Melbourne.

In 1992 Duel competed in Australia's first National Aerosol Art Competition among sixteen of Australia's best graffiti artists and also won a Victorian state award for a commissioned wall mural around this time.

Aerosol makes its mark as an art form: John Deul works on the finer detail of his contribution to the first National Aerosol Art Competition in West Heidelberg.

Beyond murals, Duel produced massive sculptural wall art pieces exhibited around Melbourne and moved into stenciling and canvases. Beyond his public art, his art has adorned cars, clothing and businesses.

Duel was as much a break dancer as graffiti artist and by the 1990s, he performed in many clubs and had made a number of appearances on Australian TV in both variety programs and TV commercials. Together with his break dance group, Duel won in the Extreme Games in 2000. By this time he had also set up his own break dance classes in Melbourne, training other dancers.

In1994 he featured in the television Australian documentary, Sprayed Conflict, by producer/director Robert Moller which featured both graffiti and break dancing. The documentary appeared at a number of film festivals and was released on video and more recently on DVD and developed a cult following as one of Australia's earliest films on graffiti art and its artists.

Duel has also been hired by local government authorities to meet with youth and run workshops in spray art.