Convenience store graffiti masterpiece pops up in Bridge City: Jay and Silent Bob are back

Who knew a boarded-up convenience store in Bridge City could be the Louvre?

A graffiti artist recently stenciled portraits of two iconic characters from the cult movie “Clerks” on the plywood protecting the windows of a derelict filling station convenience store at 1020 Bridge City Ave.

"Clerks" centered on the stalled lives of the employees and patrons of a soda, magazine and cigarette store in small-town New Jersey. As fans of director Kevin Smith’s 1994 existential comedy can tell you, the buddies Jay and Silent Bob are amusing marijuana dealers and parking lot denizens. They represent the yin and yang of human personality: Jay profane, Bob profound.

In the movie, Jay isn't portrayed as a tagger. But notice that in the west bank double portrait he's holding a spray paint can in his hand as if he were somehow responsible for his own appearance on the plywood. The colorful paintings of the two deadenders are accompanied by a white canvas sheet bearing the words, "I assure you we're open," another meta reference to the movie but an ironic one, because the Westwego Avenue store is decidedly closed.

The style of the artwork is a blend of Warhol-like pop culture reference and Banksy-like realistic stenciling. To graffiti aficionados, the Jay and Silent Bob portraits are obviously the work of Josh Wingerter, a talented Westwego native who achieved local fame during the COVID-19 quarantine era. At the onset of the pandemic lockdown, Wingerter stenciled the boarded windows of New Orleans' Frenchmen Street entertainment district with art.

In a Facebook post, Wingerter took responsibility for the Bridge City painting. “I was here every weekend in my early 20s,” he wrote, adding that he usually bought “a box of chicken, 2 green teas and some Milk Duds.” Wingerter has not replied to attempts to contact him for more comment.

On Thursday, a passerby named Brandon Clifford called the artwork an example of “brilliant, sophisticated, modern graffiti.”

'Is this ethical?'

Unauthorized painting of private property is always illegal. But the degree of the artist’s intention, to be antisocial or social, is a matter of conjecture. Reacting to a photo of the convenience store painting, a Reddit commenter posed the crucial question: “Is this considered ‘ethical’ graffiti?”

The answer would be up to the individual.

The appearance of Jay and Silent Bob on a boarded-up Bridge City convenience store is not the first time that "Clerks" characters have been blended into the New Orleans gestalt. In 2019, Brian O’Halloran, who starred as hapless convenience store clerk Dante Hicks in the movie, was the king of the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus Carnival parade.