The 2022 exhibition Convergence connected the work of Sumeela Mody and her father, Asoka Katakam, with the artistic legacy of Katakam’s mother, Sushila Jayaram.
Presented at Gallery 78 in Hyderabad, the exhibition brought three generations of one family into a conversation across painting, drawing, sculpture and memory.
Colour and texture beside precise line
Mody used a palette knife to build vibrant, textured paintings. The technique allowed her to approach the surface almost as a sculptor, shaping colour through raised marks and physical movement.
Her work contrasted with Katakam’s black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings, which focused on rural life through minute detail and architectural precision. He also presented several sculptural pieces.
The exhibition began as an intended presentation of Mody’s recent work, including developments following her series H.U.R.T., an acronym for Hope, Unity, Resilience and Tolerance. She then invited her father to show work that had largely remained private.
Recovering Sushila Jayaram’s place in the family history
The exhibition also paid tribute to Sushila Jayaram, who lived from 1926 to 1990. She worked in oil, watercolour and palette-knife painting and exhibited in countries including China and Egypt.
Her practice was poorly documented online, but remained present through family memories and the recollections of Hyderabad artists who had known her work.
Katakam saw similarities between his mother’s methods and those later adopted by his daughter. Mody also identified the influence of her father’s design sensibility and her mother’s sugar craft.
Convergence showed artistic inheritance as something more complex than stylistic imitation. Techniques, ways of observing and attitudes toward making passed between generations, but each artist transformed them through a distinct professional life and visual language.