🔗 Share this article Young Australian Faces Charges for Supposedly Placing Sticker Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Artwork The local council stated they could not remove the eyes without damaging the artwork. A teenager from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after allegedly vandalizing a sizable art piece of a mythical creature by affixing plastic eyes to it. Amelia Vanderhorst, 19 years old, appeared remotely at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of property damage. In a statement at the time of the September incident, the local council said that surveillance video captured a person placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which locals have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”. Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and informed the judge she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in December. The affected sculpture after the stickers were removed. A day after the alleged incident, the local mayor said 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 valued community art is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin remarked in September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have welcomed the Blue Blob.” The mayor added the local government would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those accountable for the vandalism. At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the area residents due to its price tag and design. Priced at 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; £68,000), the sculpture represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an ancient marsupial ant-eater found in nearby caverns that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”. The sculpture is its official name but residents called the artwork the ‘Blue Blob’.