Born in Brittany in 1954, began photography at high school, studied computer engineering in Toulouse, research on computer speech synthesis, then adult educator to earn a living, learning 50,000 black and white negatives.

Purchases a 4x5" camera at the end of 1983, first colour images, set of urban landscapes in Toulouse and its surroundings in 1984, winner of the Kodak Critics’ Prize, meets Jean-François Chevrier and the photographers of the DATAR Photographic Mission which he joins in 1985-1986.

First solo and group exhibitions. Various series of images, Disorders, Portraits, Nights. Mission TransManche cahier N°4, 1% for the college of Labruguière in 1988, first pieces associating several images. Resident at the Cité des Arts in Paris in 1989-1990. Participates in exhibitions: Une autre objectivité at ICA London, CNAP Paris, MAC Prato; Photokunst in Stuttgart, Passages de l’image at the Centre Pompidou, then at MOCA San Francisco.

Meets artists Suzanne Lafont, Patrick Tosani, Jean-Luc Moulène, Thomas Struth, John Coplans, Craigie Horsfield, Jeff Wall. Represented by the Giovanna Minelli gallery. Meets Swedish composer Madeleine Isaksson. Resident at the Akadémie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart in 1990-1991, invited to Valencia, guest lecturer at the Ecole d’Art de Marseille in 1991-1992.

Work for the Toulouse metro in 1993: the glasses of the Jolimont station. First son Emil, moved to Châtenay-Malabry in 1994, the suites ici-même, personal exhibition at the Fotomuseum Winterthur in 1995, catalogue with a text by Urs Stahel. Commissioned by Fos. Adam is born in 1996, joins the Peyroulet gallery in Paris where the first digital images, Les jours, Modules, Images are exhibited.

Gerz-Garnell exhibition, RAM Los Angeles gallery. Commissions Porto Marghera near Venice with American photographers, Le parc de Sceaux, Mutations in Bordeaux. Series Les simples, Les pages in 1999. First collaboration with the magazine nest, a quaterly of interiors, New York, followed by about ten others.

Appointed teacher at the Tours art school in 2000, exhibition at the Kunstverein in Stuttgart in 2001, 80 pieces shown covering ten years, catalogue with a text by Uta Nusser, participates in the Biennale de Lyon Connivence, curated by Anne Bertrand. Collaboration with the Belgian fashion designer Ann Huybens, several fabric patterns.

New multiple pieces, series Les découpes, NBC, a video projection Soft Sofa. In 2003 a first book project, Summer, 64 photographs, followed by another in 2004, par le noir, a set of 15 images, exhibited and then edited by the Lectoure Photographic Centre in early 2005. Appointed teacher at the Marseille Art School, create with Max Armengaud and Brice Matthieussent the studio “La photographie & co”.

Participates in exhibitions, Objets dans l’objectif at the Bibliothèque Nationale with 2 series, Les rescapés, Le bout de la table, La force de l’art in 2006 at the Grand-Palais, curated by Éric de Chassey, Les peintres de la vie moderne at the Centre Pompidou. New pieces, Escalier B, for Fotografia Europea in Reggio-Emilia, and Morimondo 2007, shown by Roberta Valtorta at the MUFOCO in Milan.

Other exhibitions include Topografías de la memoria in Bilbao, Tenerife, Universal archive at the MACBA in Barcelona and Lisbon. The complete Disorders is shown at the Lianzhou Festival 2012, curated by François Cheval. Qu’est ce que la photographie, for the opening of the Centre Pompidou’s photography gallery in 2015, Landschaft.Umwelt.Kultur, exhibition and symposium at the Museum für Fotografie in Braunschweig.

Publication in 2016 at the CPM in Marseille of the book Jean-Louis Garnell, including several recent series. In 2017, In the workshop of the DATAR Photographic Mission, at the Rencontres d’Arles , then French Landscapes at the BnF. Participation in the Brighton Photo Biennial 2018: A New Europe.

Invited to present his work at the Cerisy symposium, La France en albums, at Monique Sicard’s seminar at the ENS, at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris, in dialogue with Michel Poivert.

In 2019, Pictures for a while solo exhibition at the Centre Photographique Marseille, with the support of the Mécènes du sud Aix-Marseille. Publication of an interview with Erick Gudimard.

The work continues, drawings, photographs, publishing projects…