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Member of Flag since 2024
Artist Statement:
The Florida I grew up with – a landscape dotted with Burma Shave style signs, attractions like The Coral Castle, Bongoland, and Cypress Gardens, and the quirky buildings of individuals with a vision – is fast disappearing, replaced with more and more housing developments and big-box chain hotels. Before the interstates laced across the state, highways such as US1 were the main access routes to Florida and many of these older attractions still lie along those roads.
So much of living in a place designed for the purpose of selling itself to visitors is the sacrifice of personal nostalgia. The cute mom-and-pops motels and those roadside attractions, which hold fond memories for many in their region, just look run down and “old” to the tourists. For this reason, little stays the way it is; there is constant remodeling, a never-ending expansion, and steady development.
My work examines the impact on tourist economies as transit routes change. Before the US Interstate system came to Florida, much of the tourist economy was centered along highway US 1 and similar routes. Although most tourists now move through Florida via the interstates, the attractions, restaurants, and hotels built along the highway are still
there. Some thrive, while some are abandoned and repurposed. Focusing on the older highways, my images document the remnants of highway travel from the Florida/Georgia border down through Key West and show what has become of the sites along these once significant routes.
About the Artist:
Liz Murphy Thomas is an artist and educator. She holds a BFA in Creative Photography from the University of Florida and an MFA in Photography and Digital Imaging from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Liz grew up in Daytona Beach, FL, an experience which has profoundly affected her work. In retrospect, she attributes her childhood experiences to her interest in photographing what she describes as “the conceptual histories of tourist sites and the broader sociological underpinnings of tourism.” Overall, her artwork investigates issues of identity, memory and the associations we give to personal possessions.
Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and Europe and is represented in several permanent collections including the Southeast Museum of Photography. She previously taught photography and digital media courses at The University of West Florida, Pensacola State College, and the University of Illinois Springfield. She currently lives and works full time in Northeast Florida where she is a Professor of Digital Media at Florida State College at Jacksonville.