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A young person from Australia has faced legal proceedings after allegedly vandalizing a large art piece of a mythical creature by affixing plastic eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, aged 19, participated via phone at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, charged with a single charge of damaging property.

Officials commented at the time of the recent event, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video showed a person placing artificial eyes on the artwork, which residents have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.

The accused did not enter a plea and told the judge she was unwell, as reported by news outlets, with the magistrate recommending her to find a lawyer before her next court date in December.

The following day the alleged incident, the local mayor said that restoration to the much-loved community sculpture would be expensive as the adhesive eyes were impossible to be detached without damaging the art piece.

“This intentional vandalism to a cherished 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 society who have welcomed the Blue Blob.”

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

When the artwork was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and appearance.

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