My story

Born in Sydney in August 1968, my parents migrated from Mauritius to Australia in 1967. I am the youngest offspring in my family, being the only member of the family to be born in a hospital, with one brother and three sisters. We spoke French, Creole and English at home - often all languages were spoken - often all in the same sentence. From the age of two to twenty-one, I lived in Kogarah an average suburb of average class, using the word "class" loosely. In 1973 I repeated Kindergarten where, in primary school there were many complaints of me often talking to my self and of excessive day dreaming.

As a child, my dream was, when I grow up, to be a car designer, psychologist, artist or rock star where I often practiced with my air guitar in my bedroom until I got my own real guitar in 1987 when I was eighteen. I wrote my first song in 1989 called "Love Letter." Since then I have written almost thirty songs, been the front man and songwriter of two bands which was followed by a short solo career. I wish to pursue music professionally again when I have more time available to commit, where at the moment I only play on quiet evenings with friends. I used my passion and interest in psychology to drive my commitment toward my personal growth. I redirected my passion for car design into my sculpture practice. And as for an artist - I will continue to create things as best as I can and serve the community the best of my ability.

In 1987 I studied architectural drafting for half a year and left the course due to Schizophrenia, which was yet to be diagnosed. In 1988, I started my first year at City Art Institute after it lost the name of Alexander Mackie. I graduated, to what is now named College of Fine Arts - University of New South Wales in 1993, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and then graduated with a Master of Art in 1996. In 1999, I completed a Certificate of Small Business management. Between 1997 and1999, by day I was a casual high school teacher at a boys' school, and in the evening, tutored one to one in Mathematics, and at taught at evening college, held guitar classes.

Since 1992 I have won I have won four Government Grants, four Schizophrenia Fellowship art prizes, one Scholarship from the University of New South Wales in addition to being awarded artist in residence in two Hospitals, two Schools and one in Black Wattle Studios.

I am currently the Director of my second public art project, which will be funded by the Federal Government. I will be employing up to eight people with mental illness out of the total eighteen artists, which will also include artists with physical disabilities Aboriginals, Greek, Islamic, Polynesians, migrants and university students and lectures. This project will start 8in September 2002 and be completed in October 2003.

In my tertiary studies not all of my colleagues and lecturers were compassionate, as I had hoped about me having Schizophrenia. Many saw this as juicy gossip and an excuse to mock me. This made me just as paranoid as the symptoms of schizophrenia itself does to my state of mind. But don't worry, I had my own ammunition of witty comebacks, a thick skin and successes which silenced many. I started to perform well in second year, after a two-year break from study attending "Living Skills", where I starting to win awards, in during my undergraduate days where many people now thought I had an unfair advantage having Schizophrenia. Yes, but in the way that I channelled and focussed my illness productive results. Schizophrenia was never used an excuse to avoid hard work. The hard work included developing my skills as an artist and as a person with responsibilities and limitations. I am guilty of making more than my fair share of mistakes, but I leant from all of them. However, I must to make a point though, that there were accommodating colleagues during my studies, of which I am still friends with today.

Dealing with ignorant people at University and beaurocrats throughout my career taught me a lot. It taught me that I needed firstly, to have faith in my self, develop skills on how to deal with difficult people. More importantly, I gained a greater understanding of the unmeasurable and immense power of forgiveness, to love and respect my self and a sensitivity and an awareness to love and to respect others for who or what they are.

Pierre Cormamond