Jessica Marquez will graduate this spring with a master's degree in imaging arts from Rochester Institute of Technology. She is one lucky lady. Within Rochester's limited exhibition market, she found the ideal space to install her thesis show, "A Natural History." The exhibit is in the elegant gallery at Booksmart, a business that opened last April in an easily over-looked corner of the big brick building at Goodman and Anderson streets.

Booksmart - that is, owner Eric Kunsman and his four full-time employees - does digital printing, but not just any old repro stuff. The business produces limited edition books for artists and markets art book and digital supplies worldwide. For art people and those who aspire to be art people, Booksmart is like landing in Willie Wonka's factory, a magic land of remarkable possibilities. It is a gold link in the specialized photography print business growing in Rochester and feeding on historic rootstock set down by Eastman Kodak, Visual Studies Workshop, and RIT.

As exciting as this digital print business is, however, these folks are novices when it comes to running an art gallery. They've outfitted two perfect, well-lighted rooms for art display but so far, their exhibition calendar appears to be jammed with graduating RIT students. That will need to change quickly if Booksmart is to be taken seriously as a fine art venue. In the meantime, Marquez is in the right place at the right time.

Her installation deals with heritage - specifically, her own. One wall is covered in book-sized sheets of paper upon which are printed side-view black silhouettes. The images represent individual family members and the pages are pinned to the wall in a pattern replicating a genetic DNA strand, a kind of family tree via "Nova." I know this only because Marquez explained it to me - not because I would ever have picked up on the DNA spiral pattern myself. I get the book-page-history-reading thing, but DNA?

Other components in the installation include an antique library card catalog case (her very own cabinet of curiosities) filled with stacks of hand-written notes interspersed with personal iconic objects, and shadow box tables filled with family memorabilia. This is all very Victoriana and continues what seems to be a prevalent infatuation with all things historic among young artists. It's a language of nostalgia. A social scientist will explain it all to me someday.

A wall-hung linen embroidery sampler (approximately five yards long) tells another intimate story of genetically inherited material; it's hard for a non-biologist to interpret out of these thousands of repeated alphabet letters, but I take the artist's word for it. On an apposing wall are time-lapsed digital photographs of a bare chest (I assume Marquez's) upon which are tracings - bloodline tattoos that fade with time.

This is an intensely personal body of work. Clearly the artist immersed herself in the process during her two years at RIT. But I was left wondering: am I supposed to respond to the visual artistry - not so successful here - or the scientific research or the obvious time investment in this project? This installation is just way too clever and the story clues too obscure. Art doesn't need to send everyone rushing for the Advil bottle.

A Natural History

Through December 29

Booksmart Studio

250 N Goodman St

598-9322, booksmartstudio.com