PIRANHAS WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING

Medium: Screenprint on Saunders Waterford 425gm HP Hi-white paper
Year: 2017
Sheet: 60×46 inches (151.5 x 115.6 cm)
Edition: 50
Artist’s Proofs: 20 AP
Publisher: Pace Editions Inc., New York
Each signed, dated, and numbered in pencil

PIRANHAS WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING depicts a dolphin filled with vibrant, abstracted cartoon characters, combining high art techniques with pop-culture figures. Released exclusively by Pace Editions at Art Basel Miami on 1 December 2016, its design and method reflect KAWS’s wider legacy of blurring the lines between fine art, street art, and commercial products. The print originally retailed for $18,000.

This print is part of KAWS’s broader Outlines series, where he takes the recognizable outlines of famous cartoon characters and fills them with his own layered, abstract graphics. This series is an example of KAWS’s practice of appropriating pop culture icons and intervening with his signature artistic style. He has previously done this with characters from The Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants.

The artwork’s outline features a dolphin, an animal typically seen as friendly. This choice creates a playful juxtaposition with the title, which references piranhas. The interior of the dolphin’s body is a complex, deconstructed collage of fragments from appropriated cartoon characters, all rendered in KAWS’s signature palette of vibrant, neon, and contrasting colors. The work critically engages with the boundary between fine art and commercial art. By using universally known cartoon characters—part of “low” popular culture—and transforming them into a fine art object, KAWS elevates the familiar into the extraordinary.

The ironic title, PIRANHAS WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING, subverts the viewer’s expectations. While the form appears to be a friendly dolphin, the menacing title and the abstract, aggressive-looking interior suggest hidden complexities and potential dangers lurking beneath the surface of the mundane and familiar. The appropriated figures are deconstructed into abstract shapes, echoing KAWS’s wider themes of human emotion and condition, such as loneliness and alienation. The artwork can be seen as a commentary on the sometimes chaotic or fragmented nature of modern life, hidden within a familiar, pleasant facade.

Auction Results

Mainichi Auction: 18 October 2025
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 4,000,000
JPY 2,300,000 / USD 15,275

KAWS
PIRANHAS WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING, 2017
Screenprint
Signed, ed.50

Heritage Auctions: 28 July 2022
USD 33,750

KAWS
Piranhas When You’re Sleeping, 2016
Silkscreen in colors on paper
Signed, numbered 19/50, and dated in pencil lower left

Christie’s New-York: 21 July 2022
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 44,100

KAWS (B.1974)
PIRANHAS WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING, 2017
Screen-print in colors, on Saunders Waterford HP paper
Signed, dated and numbered ’23/50 KAWS.. 17′ in blue pencil
This work is number 23 from the edition of 50 (there were also twenty artist’s proofs)

Poly Hong-Kong: 13 July 2022
Estimated: HKD 150,000 – 250,000
HKD 180,000 / USD 22,930