Katherine Love first started to paint images of furniture unnaturally placed in landscapes as a way to visualize the idea of feminine identity associated with domestic life. Then she tried using traditional desserts, such as Jell-O. In her latest series, though, she has begun experimenting with Victorian-era hairstyles.

“They are very fun to paint and draw, with all of the curls and braids and details,” she said. “I’m really interested in the shape, the quality of the hair, which turns into a formal aspect of art that you can start to abstract.”

Underneath that initial blush of beauty, though, is a more complicated subtext, she said, which she emphasizes in her work in a two-person Koa Art Gallery show — continuing through March 11 at the Kapiolani Community College venue — by leaving out the body and face of the woman as the hair surreally floats in pastoral scenes. Her partner in this exhibit, Kirsten Rae Simonsen, similarly challenges viewers to think about domestic pursuits of perfection — like a child’s birthday party where everything goes right — by showing places of pageantry at unusual stages, such as after they are over or as they are being put together, when they do not appear nearly as alluring. She often adds curious wild animals to the scene, cautiously exploring the situation.

The “Romantic Landscapes and Pleasure Parks” show “asks more questions than it explains and is provocative, in the best of ways,” said gallery director David Behlke.

While Love acknowledges the importance of a hairstyle as “one of those aspects of your appearance that people notice first, framing your face,” she dismisses her own hair as “very contemporary, shoulder-length, whatever is get-out-of-the-house-in-10-minutes fast. Most of the women I know, they don’t have a lot of free time. And hair can take a lot of time.”

Yet Love, who earned her master’s degree in fine arts from University of Hawaii at Manoa, also thinks the symbolism of hair styling, from a bygone era, can convey a lot to viewers about the rules and restrictions placed on women historically.

“There is a lot of sensuality and personality with the hair, but it has a double meaning, too,” she said. “It creates a feeling of being tightly wound and constricted, when combined with these loosely painted and romanticized landscapes.”

Simonsen, who earned her master’s degree in fine art from University of Chicago, illustrates nature scenes as well, only with remnants of a party, carnival or festival in a desolate and unexplained dystopian state.

“We both are interested in things that are mysterious and ominous but also beautiful,” Simonsen said. “We both are interested in the contrast between things domesticated and things that are wild or untamed.”

Love said, “I like the duality of this work. It’s neither all good nor all bad. There’s a complexity there, as there is in life.”