International artist based in Monaco, was born in Paris in 1953 to a French father and Gabonese mother. She lived in Gabon for the greater part of her childhood and has spent most of her life in Europe - in France, Great Britain, Monaco and Spain. Her works can be found in private and public collections around the world and are signed in her mother's memory Owanto Bia. Owanto means La Femme, The Woman. Owanto is representing, her motherland, the Republic of Gabon in their debut at 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2009).

"Owanto uses pop, conceptual and minimal art in her creation of universal symbols, which remind spectators of where the solutions to our world may lie and how a society lacking moral strength
may begin to heal. Using her sculptures as starting points, Owanto creates a series of icons which she presents in highly technical formats such as light-boxes and traffic signs - mediums previously explored by Maurizio Cattelan, Rogelio Lopez Cuenca, Gabriel Acuna and Michael Pinsky. Owanto's discourse focuses on images of a family group and a child playing, which suggest a happier world to come. The pieces have the double intention of alerting us to solutions to our global predicament, and of suggesting a change in governing attitudes and rules. The light-boxes, like torches and lighthouses, illuminate a future characterised by tolerance, unity and hope. "(Fernando Francés, 2009)