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A teenager from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after reportedly vandalizing a sizable art piece of a legendary being by affixing googly eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, 19 years old, appeared via phone at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on that day, facing with one count of damaging property.

Officials commented at the time of the September incident, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video showed a individual placing artificial eyes on the artwork, which locals have nicknamed the “Cast in Blue”.

Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the judge she was ill, as reported by media sources, with the magistrate advising her to secure a legal representative before her next court date in December.

A day after the alleged incident, the local mayor stated that restoration to the popular community sculpture would be costly as the stickers could not be detached without harming the art piece.

“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 pricey - it is also frustrating to those people of our society who have embraced the Blue Blob.”

She said the local government would pursue the “substantial” repair costs from those accountable for the vandalism.

At the time the sculpture was first proposed, it drew mixed reactions from the area residents due to its cost and appearance.

Costing 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 ancient marsupial ant-eater discovered in local caves that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.