🔗 Share this article

A young person from Australia has appeared in court after reportedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a legendary being by affixing googly eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, 19 years old, participated via phone at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on that day, charged with one count of damaging property.

In a statement at the moment of the recent event, the local council explained that CCTV footage captured a person placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”.

Ms Vanderhorst made no plea and told the court she was ill, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate advising her to secure a lawyer before her upcoming hearing in December.

The following day the alleged incident, the city leader stated that repairs to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be detached without damaging the art piece.

“This wilful damage to a cherished community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in mid-September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those people of our community who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”

She added the local government would pursue the “significant” repair costs from those responsible for the damage.

At the time the artwork was first proposed, it drew varied responses from the local community due to its cost and appearance.

Costing 136,000 Australian dollars ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork represents a legendary giant animal, with the creators influenced by an ancient marsupial ant-eater discovered in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.