At the age of 3, she moved to the city of Porto, where she began painting murals and where she completed her secondary education at the Soares dos Reis Art School.
[1][2][3][4] Lhano was a visual education teacher and illustrator at the Asa publishing house, having also created interior panels, posters, scenographies and urban murals.
She was arrested by the PIDE for distributing pamphlets against the colonial war and failed a college exam for presenting a painting about "a massacre by Portuguese soldiers in a village in Mozambique".
[5][3] Lhano was also a social and feminist activist, having been part of the Vila do Conde South Zone Residents' Commission, one of the founders of the UMAR association in 1976, and one of the organizers of the first MayDay, a demonstration against job insecurity in the city of Porto.
[5][2] In 2023, the municipalities of Póvoa de Varzim and Vila do Conde jointly organized a tribute to Lhano on the occasion of her 50-year career in the visual arts and 40 years of exhibiting her work.