Boudha in the evening. Om Mani chants floating through the air, turning prayer wheels, butter lamps, pilgrims prostrating, nomads and wanderers clustering around. No matter the season, this is a magical twilight.

It is also when 23-year-old Tibetan artist Chungpo Tsering strolls through the alleys and around the stupa, drinking in the sights and the atmosphere, a small sketch book, few charcoals and pencil at the ready. This is what Chungpo loves most-tracking faces in the crowd, spotting a remarkable persona and following it around. And then getting back home to render their images in charcoal strokes on white paper.

At Chungpo's debut exhibition, 25 such works are displayed, a combination of imagination, a firm hand and a watchful eye. His charcoal lines and the smudges are measured and strong, brilliant at times.

And as the surprise of his youth sinks in, comes another shocker-Chungpo has only been doing this for a year. In this short time, he has not just mastered the medium, he has managed to ground himself in a place that sees just how the everyday is beautiful. In Kora, for instance, there are three monks and a beggar-boy, sitting together for alms. It is a real life drama that you see everyday around Boudha, in the evening, of course. But in Chungpo's charcoal you get a sense of openness and acceptance of the monks, and the street-smarts of the young boy. "There is such a beautiful harmony between them," he smiles.

The Lhosar Festival is at first glance a straightforward drawing of a flamboyant Tibetan youth speeding on a stallion, trying to spear a target on the ground. But something in the picture makes you look again. And then you realise that there is an unnerving stillness in the picture, as if the artist sensed that the time for such sport is past, even if its spirit is alive. The same silence pervades drawings like the silhouette of His Holiness the Dalai Lama carrying the Dorje and Ghanta, and the sketch Swoyambhu.

But not all the drawings rely so much on the imagination for their impact. Chungpo often walks the fine line between depicting what the mind's eye sees and duplicating what simply meets the eye. Some may not like this-one viewer at his show was of the opinion that his work comprises "copies," much the same as photographs. Maybe so, but they are compelling copies that hint at the stories behind the people.

Chungpo is very honest about how many of his works come about, which parts are drawn from life and which are inspired by other representations. In Old Man From Rolpa, he says that while he got the face of the man from a popular postcard, he had a tough time creating the sinew of the picture. "I stretched and strained my neck till I could see even the small veins in the mirror. Then I copied them one by one," laughs the artist, adding, "now I know what my neck will look like when I grow old." And by that time, when charcoal has rubbed against many countless sheets of paper, Chungpo may not even have to look in the mirror.

Chungpo seems well tuned into humour, harmony, silence and action. His drawings, filled with Tibetoid locations, livelihood, bright faith and smiles, have the ability to draw viewers in pondering histories, some personal, some larger. The smile on the face of Tingri Sister, for instance, is extremely intimate, and if you ask Chungpo, he says, well it should be, after all that is the smile of his sister. If Chungpo decides to only draw family members at any time, he is well supplied-he has three brothers and three sisters. But the young artist, who grew up in the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala, says he would have trouble doing his parents. "I never got to see them too well."

Chungpo trained in carpet design in the village, and says he moved to Kathmandu to "find space for my work and my innovations." The boy carried at the age of two by his father all the way from his native village Tingri, in Tibet, to Dharamsala, has come a long way-home. Home to Chungpo now is "the world of the arts." The soft-spoken artist says he wants to "explore the five elements," and next is oil painting. He doesn't know when it will happen, but it will. "I lose track of time once I start meditate on my drawings," says Chungpo.

Meanwhile, when the sun comes up everyday, in a small room in Boudha the lights will be going off and a young artist will be ending his day.

Charcoal drawings by Chungpo Tsering, 14-24 September, 8am-6pm daily, Indigo Art Gallery.