"Bit-By-Bit" examines how built and natural environments can be subtly and steadily transformed. The idiomatic title alludes to digital 'bits' that power our technology, and to the small, almost imperceptible processes by which inhabited space evolves over time. Central to the works in this exhibition is a curiosity about how traces of humanity accumulate and dissolve in a manner that mirrors cycles in nature. Industrial debris, architectural fragments, and displaced objects become vessels for, or artifacts of, memory, while these physical vestiges still suggest a once-intentional design and utility. The collected imagery invites visitors to notice details often overlooked; warmth tucked into an empty corner, the imprint of a vanished hand, and the gentle hum of ecology in an urban landscape. In doing so, the exhibition asks us to experience the built environment as one contingency in a larger cycle of reciprocity, implicating what we manufacture with what patiently reclaims it—bit by bit.

Derek Toomes is an artist who lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Interior Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Toomes work has been displayed in numerous national and museum exhibitions, including most recently at Inter/Access in Toronto, Canada, Everson Museum of Art, CAM Raleigh, LUMP Gallery, Ackland Museum of Art Chapel Hill, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. He has been invited to work on various collaborative art projects throughout Northern America and continues to participate in both national and international artists’ residencies. Derek received his MFA in New Media and Installation in 2018 from UNC-Greensboro.

A First Friday reception for "Bit-By-Bit" will take place on Friday, April 4 from 4-7 p.m. in the River Campus Expansion Gallery.

To learn more about this artist, please visit derektoomes.com.