🔗 Share this article

A teenager from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after reportedly vandalizing a sizable art piece of a mythical creature by applying plastic eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, aged 19, appeared remotely at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in South Australia on Tuesday, charged with a single charge of property damage.

Officials commented at the time of the September incident, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video captured a person placing fake eyes on the artwork, which locals have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.

Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and told the court she was unwell, according to news outlets, with the judge recommending her to secure a lawyer before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.

The following day the reported event, the city leader said that repairs to the much-loved community sculpture would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be removed without damaging the art piece.

“This intentional vandalism to a valued public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have embraced Cast in Blue.”

The mayor said the council would seek the “significant” restoration expenses from those accountable for the vandalism.

When the sculpture was initially suggested, it drew varied responses from the local community due to its price tag and design.

Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.