McGowen studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and at the Art Academy in Vienna, Austria, where she came into contact with Viennese Actionism. After living in Austria, Germany and Portugal, she returned to New York City in 2008 and participated in numerous group shows in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
In 2018, McGowen moved to a remote area of Northern California where she lives with her husband and their Portuguese Mastiffs. She had a solo booth at the Spring Break Art Show in Los Angeles in 2022 and 2023. She has recently had group and solo shows in San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, and Redding, California.
