Hélène Baum-Owoyele (born in 1987 in Munich) grew up in Germany, England and France. She graduated in 2011 from l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, then worked in agencies and industry as a graphic designer in Amsterdam and, finally, Berlin. Since 2017, she has been a freelance illustrator, designer and visual artist, creating highly colourful images in watercolour, mixed and vector media. Coming from a diverse cultural background, what defines her universe is a sense of "kaleidoscopic identity".

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Largely, her illustration and design work aims to empower  BIPoC communities and is mostly used in cultural and socio-political contexts around issues of diversity, inclusivity, and ecology. She also illustrates books, creating empowering and magical narratives for all.

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Her art inscribes itself in creole attitudes of amalgamation, merging, juxtaposition and syncretism. It is rooted in an animistic worldview, connecting with ancestral and futuristic indigenous knowledge systems that are grounded in a profound understanding of the earth and space, nature, and non-ordinary reality, sometimes referred to as “dream time”. 

She playfully questions the notion of (human) identity through the summoning of beings from liminal spaces, who could as much be masked dancers, spirits, shamans, aliens or all of these combined.