Born in Troon on the West Coast of Scotland in 1941, Rowlett attended Grimsby and Camberwell Schools of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. Unlike some of his old tutors, such as Euan Uglow, who is known for his thin, scraped back painted surfaces, Rowlett delights in the properties of thick paint. Painting directly from the subject, he works the surface of the canvas, often with extraordinary speed, to a rich and succulent impasto. Of his last exhibition at Art Space Gallery, the critic Andrew Lambirth wrote ‘The physical presence of Rowlett’s paint is exceptional: encrustations, broad sweeps, palette-knifings and slabs… It appears that he is attempting to make some kind of material and formal equivalent for what he sees’.