ART OF LOVE

Art Supawatt Purdy, born Supawatt Aumprasit (Thai: ศุภวัฒน์ อ่ำประสิทธิ์), on September 1, 1969, in Bangkok Thailand, is a Thai American actor.  

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He began his career in entertainment as a model in 1993 when he signed an exclusive contract with Storm Models Management, New York.   In 1996, he relocated to Bangkok, Thailand.  By 1998, after signing with Kantana Video Production, he debuted his acting career with a bang staring opposite Ms Asia Pacific, Emma Wararat, in  a cult classic mega hit, Pechtamaew.  This horror favorite premiered on ch. 5 in February 1998, and quickly became one of the biggest primetime mini-series hit of that year.  In 2003, Art signed a recording contract with Warner Music and released his CD 'Art of Love' produced by the Great Thanongsak Arpornsiri of the GrandEx fame.   Since discovering the gift of entertaining, he's been entertaining the world non-stop doing numerous concert tours from Tokyo to Zurich to New York to Sin City Las Vegas.   Judging from his good nature, one would have never guessed that this fun loving star had a very humble and not so promising start. 

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After giving birth to Art, his mother abandoned him and put him up for adoption.  Luckily, after found out about his existent, his aunt went to adopt him with the hope to raise him as her son.  But his luck didn't last long, not long after adopting baby Art, his aunt became pregnant and gave birth to a son.  Raising two young babies proved to be too much for his aunt.  Once again Art was dismissed.  Fortunately though for him, this time he was taken by two angles, his great-aunts Yai Tum and Yai Pai who took him back to their rice field and raised him and loved him as their own.  

Art understood the importance of education at a very young age.  He knew that in order to secure a good life for him and his grandmothers he must have a college degree.   At 13, seeing how his grandmothers had to work hard just to make ends meet and to put food on the table, he decided  to write his mother and asked for a chance to go live with her.  To his surprise, she said yes.  

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At the age of 14, Art moved to America to live with his parents in Fort Walton Beach, Florida where he attended Fort Walton Beach High School.  Art started 10th grade knowing very little English so he chose classes with minimum English like French & Mathematics.  His report card for the first two six weeks filled with mostly C's and B's and some A's.  But by the 3rd six week Art managed to bring home a straight A report card.  Art continued to fill his report cards with all A's until he graduated high school.

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In the fall of 1988, after graduating high school, Art began his undergraduates studies at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, Florida.  He received two scholarships to study Engineering, including the Kawanis Scholarship and Housing Scholarship from the Southern Scholarship Foundation which awarded him room & board for the entire 4.5 years at FSU. 

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In 1993, he graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering. Following his dream of working at NASA, he continued his education in the Industrial Engineering Master of Science program in Expert System. Second semester into his Master degree, he was offered a modeling contract, so he decided to put his NASA dream aside and gave modeling a try. Subsequently, he moved to New York City and signed with Storm Model Management and began his career in modeling. He later described his time in New York City as 'the time of my life' and appearing in Vogue (magazine), Germany Edition, in the advertisement for Givenchy as the proudest moment in his life.

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In 1996, after receiving news about many great job opportunities from his model friend who was working in Bangkok at the time, he decided it's time to move back to Thailand. After a year of working as a model in Thailand for various top fashion magazines, runways, advertisements and commercials, his big break came in 1997 when he was chosen to be the presenter in a TV commercial for 'Hunter Whiskey."

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Fluent in both English and Thai, Art acted in the leading role in several Thai language television mini-series (lakorn). Art began his acting career beautifully starring opposite freshly crowned Miss Asia Pacific 1997 Emma Warrarat Suwarnarat in a colt classic 'Petch Ta Meaw.'   Directed by one of Thailand's best and multi-talented Ta Nirattisai Kanjareuk of the Kantana Dynasty, Petch Ta Maew was shot in less than 3 months in 1997.  Debuted on Ch. 5 in February of 1998, it quickly became an instant hit, making Art & Emma an overnight instant stars.  

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Today, Katana, founded by Pradit Kanjareuk,  is widely recognized in Thailand as the pioneer in the thai entertainment.  It began to create the blueprints for the Thai entertainment industry with Radio drama, a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio, during the Golden Age of Thai Radio Era.   For half of the century, Kantana Video production have produced countless award winning and classic TV mini-series & movies for the Thai audience.

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Art considered Nirattisai as the father of his acting career.  Nirattisai also casted Art as the male lead for his 'Lakorn In Concert' (a musical on tour in a rock concert style).  Thanks to Nirattisai and his 'Lakorn in Concert', Art discovered his love for singing and entertaining live audience which helped to set stage for the second phrase of his career in entertainment as a singer.

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In 2003, he signed a recording contract with Warner Music Thailand and released his first solo album 'Art of Love'. In 2008, he recorded the remake of a classic Southern gospel "Where We'll Never Grow Old" (Never Grow Old) as the theme song for the soundtrack of English director Thomas Clay's film Soi Cowboy (selected for Un Certain Regard at 2008 Cannes Film Festival).

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