Her first passions were riding her horses and dance. As an adult she lived for a number of years in the Himalayas and the Middle East where she studied various disciplines in philosophy and first explored portrait photography. In the 1980s Van worked as a photographer in Manhattan, but since she was seeking a more peaceful environment to pursue her artwork, she chose to move to the English countryside in 1989. Almost as soon as she arrived, her work was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London; and within that same year, she created precedent law by becoming the first photographer ever to be granted United Kingdom artist's working visa. For the next 10 years she created her art in France and in England, finally returning to live in the United States in the late 1990s.