About

Our goal at Kleome is to produce top of the line handbags with innovative illustrations and functional design. Inspired by music, all forms of art, and a reflection of everyday life our line represents the underground artistic aesthetic way of life.

Art Director & Designer

Karine Baud Leung

"Mefiez-vous des reves de jeunesse, ils finissent toujours par se realiser."(Goethe.1749-1832)

"Be aware of your childhood dreams, they always become true"

Artist Karine Baud Leung was born in Geneva and grew up in between Switzerland and France. Geneva being one of the most international cities in Europe, she gained most of her influences from there.   "I grew up in a city where a third of the population is from somewhere else, crowded with museum's, walls filled with amazing graffiti, and rich with culture. It was hard not to get involved in a creative field with all the innovative energy that surrounded me" At the age of 6, when she wasn't skiing in the French Alps, she was home drawing, sketching clothes for her imaginary friends creating collage and painting with gouache. One day when all the snow was melted, and the sun was warming up the souls she got introduced to what would become a main inspiration on her work: Skateboarding. "It was love at first sight and I embraced that culture as if it was my family." She has kept up with the culture since the early 90's until the present day. "The graphics at the time were extremely innovative. I absorbed all the elements that the culture provided at the time such as art, graphics, stickers, and translated it through my work."

Following high school, Karine attended " L' ecole des beaux art" in Annecy(In the French Alps) where she studied fine art, art history, printing, photography. She then discovered oil painting technique, which would become her main focus. In 1998 she started painting detailed oil based portraits of mixed race people, which was influenced by her family roots, Karine's mother being half Algerian half French. As soon as she graduated she decided to leave her homeland to explore the USA, the land of her numerous interests. Karine lived in NYC for two years where she there met Amir Bey, a curator who was drawn by the sensitivity and powerful expressions of her portraits. She was happy but not satisfied and the intense stress of New York was weighting on her. Living in San Francisco had always been her childhood dream that soon became true as she moved there in 2001 and still remains in the Bay. Karine has shown her work at various galleries, such as Pigman Gallery, Culture Cachee, 111 Minna and many other places.Articles and reviews of her work have appeared in Clark (french magazine) Upper Playground "Up until Now"book, andHixsept catalogue.
Graphic design has been a huge focus for her in the last few years and has worked for different clients such as Upper Playground, Hixsept, Alkemie Collaborative, and Legacy Skateboards. She is currently working on her own handbag line called KLEOME created in 2005 with her husband Satva Leung.