CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/23/2026

Plot presents 'jm: At the Age of 50, I Picked Up a Paintbrush Again'

Mother of artist Chang Yuchen, Jin Mei began making art at the age of fifty. In 2016, surgery confined her to drawing on paper. Over the following eight years, Yuchen compiled her dazzling, energetic, and ever-evolving drawings into a book, published in 2024 under her imprint How Many Books. Since then, Jin Mei has continued her persistent mark-making practice, while her imagery keeps finding new forms, exploring the endless possibilities of small, intimate scales and humble materials such as crayons.

Friday, October 23, from 7–9 PM, Jin Mei will give a talk at Plot about her life and her practice, and the unexpected turn of becoming an artist in her sixties. Her talk will be interpreted live from Mandarin into English by her daughter, Chang Yuchen, followed by a Q&A and book signing. A selection of her new drawings will also be on view and available.

Jin Mei was born in Shanxi in 1961 and attended the School of Art at Shanxi University in 1982. After graduation, she worked as an art editor for a magazine. In 1993, she opened her own business, Jin Mei Flower Shop, through which she supported the artistic practice of her family. Jin Mei picked up a paintbrush again at the age of fifty.

Chang Yuchen works in an interdisciplinary manner -- writing as weaving, drawing as translation, teaching as hospitality, commerce as social experiment (see Use Value, 2016–2026) and publishing as a dandelion spreading its seeds. Her ongoing project Coral Dictionary (2019–) is a writing system based on coral debris. Through translating visually, associatively, and emotively, a feral literacy takes shape. Yuchen is also an advocate for the art of her mother, Jin Mei.

Plot
'jm: At the Age of 50, I Picked Up a Paintbrush Again'
Friday, October 23, 7–9 PM
937 Sun Mun Way
Los Angeles
Pay what you want. RSVP here.