🔗 Share this article Young Australian Faces Charges for Supposedly Attaching Googly Eyes on ‘Cast in Blue’ Sculpture Authorities stated they were unable to take off the eyes without harming the artwork. A teenager from Australia has faced legal proceedings after reportedly defacing a large art piece of a legendary being by applying googly eyes to it. The 19-year-old, 19 years old, appeared remotely at the local court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, charged with a single charge of property damage. Officials commented at the time of the September incident, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video showed a person placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which residents have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”. The accused did not enter a plea and informed the judge she was unwell, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate recommending her to find a legal representative before her next court date 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 said that repairs to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the stickers could not be detached without harming the sculpture. “This wilful damage to a valued community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in mid-September. “It is not harmless fun, it is costly - it is also disappointing to those people of our community who have embraced the Blue Blob.” The mayor said the council would seek the “significant” repair costs from those accountable for the damage. When the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the area residents due to its price tag and design. Costing A$136,000 ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork depicts a mythical megafauna, with the creators inspired by an ancient anteater-like marsupial discovered in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”. The sculpture is its formal title but residents nicknamed the piece the ‘Blue Blob’.