🔗 Share this article

A young person from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after allegedly defacing a sizable art piece of a mythical creature by applying googly eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, 19 years old, appeared via phone at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of damaging property.

In a statement at the time of the recent event, the municipal authorities explained that CCTV footage showed a person putting fake eyes on the artwork, which residents have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.

Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the court she was unwell, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate recommending her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in the final month of the year.

A day after the reported event, the local mayor stated that repairs to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the stickers could not be removed without harming the art piece.

“This intentional vandalism to a cherished community art 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 members of our society who have embraced Cast in Blue.”

The mayor said the council would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the vandalism.

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

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