Kristan Le was born in Viet Nam and came to the United States in 1975 after the Viet Nam war. She developed an interest in drawing as a child, watching her father, an architect, sketch buildings and trees. Her art education consisted of basic high school art classes, but at age 16 she won the grand prize in a San Diego County Congressional Art Competition; that drawing was eventually exhibited at the Capital in Washington D.C.

In 1991, Kristan graduated with a B.S. in Cognitive Science at the University California San Diego, and her art was put on hold, while she spent the next eight years working as a Software Engineer. In 1999, she decided to pursue what she truly loved and enrolled in San Francisco Academy of Art University, where she Sloan won the Director's Choice Award and the show's Grand Prize award.
Additionally, she won the Grand Prize Award sponsored by International Artist magazine.
In 2005 Kristan started her studies with the artist Jove Wang. It was here that she developed a love for the paintings and art of the Russian Impressionists , and this became a dominant influence in her paintings. Since 2006, Kristan has been teaching at the Foundation and Fine Art department at the San Francisco Academy of Art University ,and now balances her time between teaching and painting.

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