The atelier
Urvashi Soni
I paint contemporary Indian miniature art from my studio in Jaipur — a city that has painted miniatures for centuries, in courts and workshops where a single brush could carry one hair’s width of colour.
My work sits between that tradition and now: the heroines of the Ashta Nayika, Durga with her ten arms, Radha and Krishna on a monsoon swing — painted in watercolour on handmade paper, with a fashion illustrator’s eye for drape, jewellery and gesture.
Everything in the shop is 100% hand-painted. There are no editions of an original and no two bookmarks alike; when a piece sells, it is gone. That slowness is the point — each piece leaves the studio with the story it depicts written alongside it.
The craft
Watercolour & gouache
Colour is built in thin, patient layers on handmade paper — jewel tones over warm paper grounds, finished with gold where the piece asks for it.
The miniature tradition
Fine single-hair brushwork, ornamental borders, architecture and botany rendered small — the visual language of Rajasthani and Mughal ateliers.
One of one
Bookmarks, envelopes, journal covers and originals are each painted once. Sold-out pieces stay in the gallery as a record of where the work has travelled.
Beyond the studio
Urvashi’s work has travelled beyond the studio — presented to the Ambassadors of India to Estonia and Finland, as part of sharing Indian miniature art with audiences in the Nordics.
