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A teenager from the Land Down Under has appeared in court after allegedly vandalizing a large art piece of a legendary being by affixing googly eyes to it.

The 19-year-old, 19 years old, participated remotely at the local court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of property damage.

Officials commented at the time of the recent event, the local council said that surveillance video captured a individual placing fake eyes on the sculpture, which locals have dubbed the “Cast in Blue”.

Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and informed the court she was ill, according to media sources, with the magistrate advising her to find a lawyer before her next court date in the final month of the year.

A day after the reported event, the city leader said that restoration to the popular public artwork would be expensive as the adhesive eyes could not be removed without damaging 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 pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have welcomed Cast in Blue.”

The mayor said the local government would pursue the “significant” restoration expenses from those responsible for the vandalism.

When the sculpture was initially suggested, it drew mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and design.

Costing 136,000 Australian dollars (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the artwork represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial discovered in nearby caverns that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.