Kristan Skinner, known in the arts community as Kristan Five, has a body of work stretching back nearly 25 years. She has created a wide-ranging portfolio of commissioned pieces for many corporate clients. In addition, her paintings are included in numerous private collections.
Kristan Five summarizes her abstract, color-based work as follows: “In theory, my work is inspired by our earth’s landscape. Globally, much of nature shares the intrinsic beauty of organic lines, textures and color with the human contribution of synthetic elements.”
Kristan’s creativity surfaced early, so with tremendous support from her parents her childhood was saturated with art. After years of intense preparation Kristan was awarded the scholastics gold portfolio scholarship, which enabled her to attend art school.
After graduating from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1995 Kristan immediately started working at an international design firm. These were the formative years of Kristan’s painting method and style. Inspired by highly creative people, new experience and travel she continued to paint, though her career in commercial design was demanding. She also continued to sell her work, somewhat randomly, to both private and corporate collectors.
In 1999 Kristan moved to Charlotte, North Carolina where she started her own design company. While focused on creating commercial design work, the demand for her artwork remained steady. In 2005 Wells Fargo and Little Architecture approached Kristan with a RFP involving 12 large-scale paintings for a new corporate office in uptown Charlotte. One of the paintings was 12 feet wide and 7 feet tall. Upon completion of that project in 2007 they commissioned a second project of 3 large-scale paintings for Wells Fargo Securities’ new private client group. The series of work for Wells Fargo enabled kristan to wean away from the commercial design business.
In 2018 kristan and her family moved to Western North Carolina where she continues to paint full time in her beautiful mountain studio.