🔗 Share this article

A teenager from Australia has appeared in court after reportedly vandalizing a sizable blue sculpture of a legendary being by applying plastic eyes to it.

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

In a statement at the time of the recent event, the local council explained that surveillance video captured a individual putting fake eyes on the artwork, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.

Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and informed the judge she was unwell, according to news outlets, with the judge advising her to secure a legal representative before her next court date in December.

A day after the reported event, the local mayor said that repairs to the popular community sculpture would be expensive as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be removed without damaging the sculpture.

“This intentional vandalism to a cherished public artwork is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”

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

When the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the area residents due to its cost and appearance.

Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a legendary giant animal, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in nearby caverns that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.