Young Australian Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Sticker Eyes on ‘Blue Blob’ Artwork

A teenager from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after allegedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a legendary being by applying googly eyes to it.

Amelia Vanderhorst, aged 19, participated via phone at the local court in South Australia on Tuesday, charged with a single charge of damaging property.

In a statement at the time of the September incident, the municipal authorities explained that CCTV footage showed a person putting artificial eyes on the sculpture, which locals have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.

Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the court she was unwell, according to media sources, with the magistrate advising her to secure a legal representative before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.

The following day the alleged incident, the local mayor stated that restoration to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be removed without harming the sculpture.

“This wilful damage to a valued public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those people of our society who have embraced Cast in Blue.”

The mayor added the council would seek the “substantial” repair costs from those accountable for the vandalism.

At the time the artwork was initially suggested, it drew varied responses from the local community due to its cost and design.

Priced at 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture depicts a mythical megafauna, with the creators influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in local caves that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.