Familial Memory in Jonathan Arro’s Pastoral Scenes

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By Ted Aldwin Ong

The large painting “No One Left Behind” anchors Jonathan Arro’s 14th solo exhibition, “Moments in Place”. The canvas depicts a rural Filipino scene in which a family travels together in a “karosa” (farm cart), its movement gently guiding the viewer’s eye toward the fading metropolis on the horizon. The visual progression shows a transition from the countryside to the city.

Within this context, Arro reimagines the karosa as a symbol of familial grit and resilience. Departing from the customary carabao-drawn carriage associated with harvests and agricultural labor in Filipino pastoral imagery, he portrays himself, as the eldest, alongside his younger brother, pulling and pushing the cart toward the town and, ultimately, the city as a central destination. This image serves as an allegory for the carabao-like endurance required for subsistence, emphasizing collective effort and shared burden.

This compositional perspective emerges from Arro’s childhood memories and formative years in Nasaka, Maasin, Iloilo. It recalls a time when family members began to pursue their individual paths, yet maintained a shared commitment to supporting one another through both hardship and prosperity in pursuit of their aspirations.

For Arro, the imagery in No One Left Behind reflects the typical Filipino family experience, particularly among his generation, when many left rural communities to pursue higher education in the city, seek employment, build careers, and access better opportunities.

“Most families back then were large households, sometimes with eight to a dozen children, and the home was often chaotic. Every member hopes for a good education, a stable job, and a successful life. Without mutual support, it was easy for one or two to be left behind, and that was something we, as a family, were determined would not happen to us,” said Arro, who will turn 70 this year.

“Hence, the piece is very personal to me, and it brings a deep sense of nostalgia,” he added. “I intend to keep it as a family centerpiece, for it reflects our vow to help one another, not to leave anyone behind, and to share the blessings that come our way.”

Contemporary Impressionism

Arro’s artistic skills were first honed in the mid-1970s, when he studied architectural drafting at the Iloilo School of Arts and Trade (now ISAT-U University). The two-year program laid the foundation for an artistic practice that would span nearly five decades and evolve across various forms, from drawing and ballpoint pen sketches to still life and portraiture.

In the years that followed, he established a portrait studio at Marymart Shopping Center in downtown Iloilo City and maintained it from 1986 to 1993, while also working as personnel for the Bureau of Fire Protection–Region VI. After his retirement in 2012, Arro continued painting with renewed focus, expanding his experimentation, and established a home studio.

During the pandemic, he deepened his engagement with the French Impressionist tradition (1860–1886), studying the works of early Impressionists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet, as well as post-Impressionists including Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

Arro’s distinct impasto technique characterized by thick applications of paint and richly textured surfaces, emphasizes light, color, and mood in capturing fleeting moments and everyday scenes rooted in personal expression. This approach positions his practice within Modern or Contemporary Impressionism.

He regards the Impressionist style as an effective medium for translating lived experience, functioning as a visual diary of people’s lives and times. In doing so, his works foster relatability across diverse audiences while encouraging a deeper appreciation of art.

Artistic Language

“I paint spontaneously, guided by intuition and instinct, drawing images etched by experience into memory, working with palette knives through loose, visible strokes without meticulous detailing,” shared Arro.

This approach gives his works a sense of immediacy and movement, resembling plein air practice. The resulting images feel alive and effortless, as though the scenes are unfolding directly before the viewer, imbuing them with freshness, liveliness, and a lighthearted quality.

This sensibility is evident in “Revisited,” a work that echoes a Van Gogh–like tonality. It depicts a family home on a rural hillside, with laundry hanging on a line and figures working in the yard. The house, which remains the artist’s ancestral home, transforms the scene as a visual reference of home and as a living memory woven into his practice.

This warmth extends across Arro’s oeuvre through a palette of yellows, oranges, browns, and greens that capture the shifting tones of rural landscapes from sunrise to sunset and across different seasons. Works such as “Earning Knowledge,” showing children walking along a dirt road to school; “Old Sugar Mill,” portraying farmers transporting harvested sugarcane for processing; “After the Rain,” where children bathe in a swamp; and “Muddy Trail,” with figures representing him and his classmates, holding onto a neighbor’s fence as they navigate a muddy path home after a downpour, all reflect his eidetic memory and sensibility.

Experimentations with tonal variation further enriched Arro’s rural scenes, introducing soft sky light above drifting clouds over rice fields, rainfed plains, and upland farms. Floral elements lining pathways also softened the terrain, merging the landscape into an almost dreamlike vibe.

This lyrical quality is poignantly rendered in works such as “Upland Farming”, “Abandoned”, and “Roses in the Valley,” where the scenes appear untouched by time, echoing the same images from long ago, renewing his memories whenever he comes back to the village of their childhood.

The familial values first embodied in No One Left Behind continue to shape and strengthen a sense of unity over time. This spirit of togetherness finds fuller expression in “Kinship in Harmony,” which depicts a family reunion. In this piece, bonds once defined by struggle and hardship evolve into an expanding yet harmonious family, with children and grandchildren celebrating their success while expressing shared joy and gratitude to a higher being.

Arro’s sensibility and evocation of everyday life testify to the continuing relevance of Impressionism in contemporary practice. In an era shaped by social media, rapid urbanization, and labor migration, rural life has increasingly receded into the background. His works, however, gently resist this drift, inviting viewers to slow down and return to their roots, where meaning is found in the familiar—family, honest labor, and the quiet joy of domestic routines.

By transforming ordinary scenes into emotional narratives of belonging and continuity, Jonathan Arro ultimately affirms that the present remains deeply rooted in shared human experience. In this way, his work not only preserves memory but also upholds enduring values of unity, resilience, and gratitude, offering a quiet yet powerful reminder of what continues to sustain and define us.