In Urbanscape (2019), Paresh Maity takes the urban sprawl and condenses it into the form of a jackfruit, or kanthal— an object sharp and unforgiving but deeply resonant with memories of home. Cast in bronze, the sculpture's spiked exterior mirrors the cramped, jostling structures of metropolitan life, where human habitation is reduced to tight proximity, each dwelling pressed against the next in relentless succession. Each spike, then, becomes a marker of isolation within the collective—a meditation on the confinement and tension of modern urbanity.
Here, Maity plays with the irony embedded in the Bengali phrase 'Gacche kathal, Gofe tel'— an expectation of comfort prematurely savoured, as if city life promises more than it delivers. The spikes hint at anticipation, only to reveal the prickly reality of urban existence. Maity's sculpture critiques this suspended promise of the metropolis, transforming the fruit into a symbol of both allure and disillusionment.
Yet, Urbanscape is more than a sculptural critique. It is Maity's personal narrative, too, for the kanthal holds the taste of home, a memory that cuts through the clamour of city life and recalls the warmth of his childhood. The piece is thus a paradox, a work where nostalgia and critique coexist, with each spike embodying the bittersweet nature of progress. It is a landscape of memory and longing, a reflection on home amid the hollowness of the urban promise, suspended somewhere between fulfilment and yearning.