Meant To Be Loved

“Meant To Be Loved” is the illustration I created for the Tapirulan Illustrator Contest, whose theme for this edition is FLOP.
Even when I’m convinced I’ve found the perfect gift and tell myself, “It’s meant to be liked,” the shadow of a flop is just around the corner.
For us adults, there is something unreasonable and almost brutal in a child’s spontaneous refusal—it touches us (more than we would like). The tiny hand that pushes the gift away, the little head that turns to the other side, determined and strong-willed, can provoke the harshest judgments. We struggle to face that kind of brutal honesty. If they don’t want something, children simply say no. How much freedom, how much awareness of their own will, in such a simple gesture.
With my illustration, I would like to invite you to reflect precisely on this: on the possibilities of refusal that we allow ourselves. Are we adults still capable of listening to ourselves and distinguishing what we want from what we don’t want? Are we still able to say no to what we do not want, to what makes us feel bad, to what we do not need, or even to what is meant to be loved?