Simon Aitchison

Simon Aitchison is a Calgary-based painter and conceptual artist working in oils on canvas. His practice spans painting, photography, and interdisciplinary conceptual work — driven by a persistent need to understand the relationship between thought, creation, and the act of making.

His paintings draw from themes of metaphysics, nature, music, and dreamlike states. He paints from what he describes as "an unknown source within" — a process that is intuitive, physical, and deeply personal. The ongoing Stones series is the body of painting from which Paintscape Photography™ was born.

"Inspired by a strong desire to paint, I created this work as if an unknown force flowed through me, allowing myself to become."

In March 2026, while photographing the surface of Stones IX — Become, Aitchison recognised a new art form in what he found. The close-range photographs of the paint's surface revealed imagined landscapes — mountains, rivers, aerial terrain — that had never existed anywhere except in the act of painting. He named this practice Paintscape Photography™ and began documenting it formally.

The conceptual framework he developed around this discovery — OIRA™ (Organically Induced Recursive Art) and AiRT™ — is published in his manifesto on simonaitchison.com. These are not retrospective labels applied to existing work. They are original frameworks that define how the work is made, why it is made, and what it means for the work to continue.

Paintscape Photography™ is his first body of photographic work. Imagined Lands Series I — five limited edition giclée prints from the surface of Stones IX — Become — is available for purchase soon.