🔗 Share this article Young Australian Charged for Supposedly Placing Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork The local council stated they were unable to remove the eyes without damaging the artwork. A young person from Australia has appeared in court after reportedly defacing a large art piece of a legendary being by affixing plastic eyes to it. Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared via phone at the local court in South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of damaging property. In a statement at the moment of the September incident, the local council said that surveillance video showed a person putting fake eyes on the artwork, which residents have dubbed the “Blue Blob”. The accused did not enter a plea and told the court she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the judge recommending her to secure a legal representative before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year. The affected sculpture after the googly eyes were removed. A day after the alleged incident, the local mayor stated that repairs to the much-loved public artwork 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 inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in 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 local government would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those responsible for the vandalism. When the sculpture was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and appearance. Costing 136,000 Australian dollars ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture depicts a legendary giant animal, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an ancient anteater-like marsupial discovered in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”. The sculpture is its formal title but locals called the artwork the ‘Blue Blob’.