It can take upto eight months for Suvigya Sharma to paint an eye. Compare that timing to the step-by-step art tutorials on YouTube and it may still feel like eons. But the Jaipur-based artist's work isn't something one can attempt to finish overnight. A technique that is over a thousand years old, miniaturisation has travelled far and wide; the concept evolving from art to microchips. Although born in a family of artists, Sharma didn't have a direction when he began at 18. And now, for the next three weeks, he will showcase 127 artworks — a portfolio he has built over 17 years comprising pichwais, refined tanjores, piquas and life-like portraits — in an exhibition titled Reminiscence at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Gallery.

Speaking about the show's title, Sharma explains, "The name emerges from the fact that it is one of the earliest art forms. When I met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose portrait I had painted, he called me a torchbearer of the technique since I am one of the very few to have taken this up as a career and actively promoting the art form." In contrast to conventional Indian miniatures, the 36-year-old artist has moved away from tradition and gravitated towards a more modern depiction with the colours and an ombre effect. This required him to study a fair bit of European art. As he says, "I want my work to have universal appeal."