Manish Soni born in Bhilwara, Rajasthan hails from the family of Rajasthani miniature artist and pichhavi master Badrilal Chitrakar Soni. Following the family tradition, he started painting at a young age and apprenticed alongside his father and grandfather. He has created a large body of work, including some notable reproductions by concocting his wasli with layers of paper stuck together before burnishing, making his own colors using minerals, vegetable extracts and other natural materials and painting with squirrel hair brushes. The much sought-after artists work is held in significant collections in India, Europe and USA. He also starred as the seventeenth century painter Nainsukh in a film produced by Zurich Museum. Presently, he lives and works in Udaipur.

His ongoing show “Ragamalas- Pictures for All Senses” at Rietberg Museum, which is the culmination of the Ragamala Project established in 2021 at Museum Rietberg as part of the GBF Research Programme for Indian Art and Artists, where he and Murad Khan Mumtaz were the only contemporary artists invited to produce works on the subject.

The Christ Commission for Sarmaya Arts Foundation was a coming together of art and history, tradition and contemporary thought, and western narratives and eastern aesthetics. This project will have 12 paintings in all, featuring key events in Jesus Christ’s life.