June 1998: I am in my workshop. I have been trying for weeks to give life to a sculpture. Suddenly an idea comes to me: I want to immerse myself in the matter – that way, I will be sure to make a lively structure. I place a camera in front of me, surround myself with material I use to sculpt and paint, and then I begin. My head is a pedestal, I work blindly, with my internal perception as my only guide. I cover my face with a layer of clay, then make a first sculpted face, which I erase rapidly. I try again and again. These masks are moveable and transformed at the stroke of the hand. Everything is touch here: my hands explore my modelled face, and my faces feel the deformation of the clay. It spreads across my chest and my limbs and I feel my body in a way I have never experienced before. What guides me is also what I am looking for: this inner perception that constitutes selfhood. What I have recorded fascinates me: I see half- men, half-beasts, between African fetish masks and Francis Bacon’s meat heads. Despite myself, the painter is also a painting and this living painting is also a dance.I have repeated and amplified this experience, this performance, with other actors and dancers on stage. The sight of naked bodies covered in clay, deformed by it, and turned into worm-like creatures is startling to both the dancers and spectators. I am currently working this vision into a theatre piece. Clay forces you to improvise and take risks: masks magnify presence and at the scale of the body or bodies, this presence becomes truly impressive. This practice carries us to unknown terrain, close to primitive dance and trance. There is no such thing as inert matter. All matter is sensitive, alive. I am matter; you and I are Earth!