Purwanto was born in Jember, East Java in 1977. He was interested in Visual Art since Junior High School and started to teach himself art after graduating. He began to paint during his school days at SMAN I Ambulu ( National Senior High School I) and won some Visual Art competitions which were held by Kiss FM, a radio station in Jember. After graduating from Senior High School, he joined his art teacher to establish ” Panji Laras," an art workshop, and eventually pursued arts at ISI Yogyakarta. In 2012, he saw Thomas Ott’s scratchboard comics and started to explore the scratching technique on canvas. The sheer amount of random composition of thousands scratching lines seems to suggest that people be more patient and careful in reading and rereading the various nuances of social cultures that exist in humanity.