Jeanne Garrett’s path to photography was not a straight line. With formal studies at Barat College and a largely self-taught practice, she began her photographic life documenting the Reagan–Bush campaign in Illinois. Her images from the Victory ’80 Bus Tour, captured the day before the election, appeared in the final edition of the Reagan/Bush News. After building a career in corporate communications and marketing, Garrett returned fully to photography, dedicating her creative life to long-term, concept-driven projects.

Her solo exhibitions include The Charcoal Forest – Nature’s Narrative of Rebirth and Renewal, shown at the Robert T. Wright Gallery at the College of Lake County; Healing Lines and Circles, inspired by her husband’s heart surgery and exhibited in multiple Illinois galleries; and ELEMENTS: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire – Fraying at the Edges, presented throughout Illinois and at A. Smith Gallery in Texas. Her work has also been exhibited at the Swope Art Museum (Indiana), Black Box Gallery (Oregon), Stonehenge Gallery (Alabama), and the Maryland Federation of Art, among others.

Garrett’s photographs have appeared in Birds and Blooms, Black & White magazine, and the Daily Herald, and have been featured online by National Geographic, the BBC, and the International Photography Hall of Fame. Her image The Stillness After received the Hall of Fame’s Grand Prize, and she has earned multiple Merit Awards from Black & Whitemagazine, along with additional honors including Best of Show at Gallery Seven in Lockport, Illinois.

Committed to photography’s role beyond the gallery, Garrett has participated in public art and community-based projects. These include transforming a graffiti-marked underpass in her hometown into an art installation and leading a large-scale portrait project at Chicago Tech Academy, where photographs of several hundred students form a two-story mural on the school’s exterior.

Across her practice, Garrett continues to explore new ways of presenting photographic imagery, incorporating textiles and gold leaf to echo the rhythms, shapes, and patterns that emerge from her photographs.