The hybrid, half-way place that is the eastern Sydney suburb of Edgecliff has been home to French artist Bruno Dutot’s notorious wall mural for almost 20 years now.

The mysterious painting has a spirit that is at once urban and cold, as it is whimsical and romantic, a fitting compliment to its location. Edgecliff is nestled between the Underbelly-esque grittiness of Kings Cross and receives its fair share of driftwood washed up the line and spilling over into its rather sad little shopping centre. But nudging from the East is Double Bay (Double Pay, as the joke goes) with its cafe set and purring luxury cars. And at the crossways, on a concrete wall that faces the traffic on New South Head Road, Rochelle has turned her back on us. The painted lady is the subject of Dutot’s longstanding public artwork titles “Oucha” ever-changing but always the same, a respected shrine adorned with graffiti that remains largely untouched by the increasingly daring stunts of the graffiti artists whose competitive tags decorate the train-line across the road.

Oucha first appeared in 1991 as one of the last in a series of public artworks Dutot started in 1989. “I don’t really know where she comes from,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald, as though he is in as much awe of her mystery as the daily commuters who look for her beneath the bus-stop, Dutot sees her as an essentially Sydney image, born of this city during his stint as an illegal immigrant here.

Typical of most graffiti work, the other versions of Rochelle have faded, though reported spottings suggest the existence of one at Bondi obscured by a tree, a blue lady in Taylor square and a rock angel by the Scenic Railway at Katoomba.

He would update the Edgecliff Rochelle regularly, he estimates over 300 times, until in 1993 the artist was sent to a detention centre before he, his cat and his dog were sent back to France for his overstay. This was an emotional period for him but an artistic vigil grew and artists maintained Oucha in Dutot’s absence.

For seven years, unknown artists continued the upkeep of the lady, each adding their own interpretation to the style.  Behind the ebb and flow of traffic, Rochelle was in a constant state of flux too.  Her backdrop would morph, messages and poems would appear championing cryptic themes, never failing to turn heads. Dutot has allowed this anonymous collaboration to occur organically, since returning to Australia, only interfering when he feels the original form has been lost and only in the shadows of the night.  Like the witches hat someone gave her.

“I will always go back when the original line is destroyed,” he says, of his part in the group of secret attendants to the Oucha shrine, “I start to recognise the style of each person. Two times what they did was very hurtful. The witch’s hat was one. Another was the silhouette of a man behind her, as if, you know … that was very hurtful, very cheap – I got so upset I grabbed a stone and tried to rub out the paint.” Oucha, he insists, is asexual – “a little bit like an angel”.

Woollahra Council is conscious of the piece’s cultural importance and the chord it has struck with the locals. Warwick Hatton, the council’s director of technical services, told the local paper,

“It is greatly appreciated by many people in the area, so we allow it to remain and be maintained by the artist from time to time, while council continues to maintain the area around it.”

Dutot is simply pleased to give pleasure to the public and the city he so loves.  “I like to touch the public’s heart. It’s not for everyone, of course, but I don’t think you can please everyone.”

Tags: Bruno Dutot, Edgecliff Oucha