🔗 Share this article

A teenager from Australia has appeared in court after allegedly vandalizing a large art piece of a mythical creature by applying googly eyes to it.

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

In a statement at the moment of the September incident, the local council explained that CCTV footage captured a individual placing artificial eyes on the sculpture, which residents have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.

Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the judge she was unwell, as reported by news outlets, with the magistrate recommending her to find a legal representative before her upcoming hearing in December.

The following day the reported event, the local mayor stated that repairs to the popular community sculpture would be costly as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be detached without harming the art piece.

“This intentional vandalism to a cherished community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those members of our community who have embraced Cast in Blue.”

She added the council would seek the “significant” restoration expenses from those responsible for the vandalism.

At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it received varied responses from the area residents due to its price tag and appearance.

Priced at 136,000 Australian dollars ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric marsupial ant-eater discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.