🔗 Share this article

A young person from Australia has appeared in court after reportedly defacing a sizable blue sculpture of a mythical creature by applying plastic eyes to it.

Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared remotely at the local court in South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of property damage.

In a statement at the time of the recent event, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video captured a person putting artificial eyes on the artwork, which locals have nicknamed the “Cast in Blue”.

The accused did not enter a plea and informed the court she was ill, as reported by media sources, with the judge advising her to find a lawyer before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.

A day after the reported event, the city leader said that repairs to the much-loved public artwork would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be removed without damaging the art piece.

“This wilful damage to a cherished public artwork is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is pricey - it is also frustrating to those people of our community who have embraced the Blue Blob.”

The mayor said the council would seek the “substantial” restoration expenses from those accountable for the vandalism.

When the sculpture was first proposed, it received varied responses from the area residents due to its cost and appearance.

Priced at A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial found in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.