Nepal, March 29 -- Samir Maharjan grew up with art and colors. Having lived the early years of his life in Patan, Lalitpur, he was surrounded by art in all forms - the intricacies of the mandalas, the burst of colors of the painted masks, and the spiraling religious structures. Taken by all this and his own inclination for arts, he drew sketches and spent hours mulling over how he could make them stand out. "I loved drawing, but I always wanted them to be more than just lines and smudges on paper. Even then I would spend many hours trying to make my work more expressive and more vibrant," he recalls.

So, very early on in life, he decided that he would become an artist. And promptly after high school, he joined the Kathmandu University Sc...