Rowena Comrie was born in Southend on Sea and trained in Fine Art at Reading University, graduating with honours in 1982. The painting school at Reading was in the hands of Sir Terry Frost until 1981, and her abstract aesthetic has its roots in his department. She came to Scotland and Aberdeen in 1988, and moved to Glasgow in 2009. She has exhibited widely across the UK. Her last major exhibition was in 2024 at Inverness Creative Academy.

Rowena has used the aesthetics of colourfield and abstract expressionism as potent means of communicating feelings and ideas. This limitless aesthetic opens up free association that can stimulate the viewer's imagination 'beyond space & time' to explore feelings untouched by conventional attitudes. Working from her studio in Glasgow, she continues to capture fleeting visions that arrive from long developed ideas. Her method requires a spontaneous and energetic means of paint application tempered by an objective assessment of chance occurrences, known to surrealists as 'Objective Chance'.

Recent career developments include in 2022 designing and collaborative painting of the Iron Heart & Public Health Mural at the former Malcolm Cockburn Foundry, Falkirk; President of Paisley Art Institute 2020-21, Current Satellite Council Member of the Society of Scottish Artists, from 2020. President of the Scottish Artist Union 2011-2014. Rowena has exhibited regularly in the USA and throughout the UK, in 2019 presenting 'NEW VIEWS OF THE OLD WORLD', in Bloomington, Indiana. Her work is held by Museum and private collections. She has been involved in mentoring, curating, education, and art workshops.