“I’ve had paranormal incidents in my studio,” says the 58-year-old painter, a retired Air Force officer who is the furthest thing from a kook or a fraud that you could find.

He tells tales that begin with radio volumes escalating — pretty tame stuff — and proceed to refrigerator doors opening and slamming shut. Then a penny shot off the table and richocheted off the door.

“I can’t make this stuff up,” DaLuz says.

When he gets to the small wooden die, which mysteriously appeared one day in the studio, then moved around to various locations before it was discovered balancing on the doorknob, you begin to think that yes, there is something to all this.

Paintbrush handles ground to a point in the pencil sharpener? Sure.

Video cameras brought in to chronicle occurrences would blink off at crucial moments, or be suddenly turned toward a wall.

Other artists in the building, the old Southern Music headquarters at the corner of Broadway and Jones, confirm odd occurrences — large canvases unaccountably rotating 45 degrees on a wall — that might be attributed to a friendly poltergeist.

“There’s never been any malice involved,” DaLuz says. “I’ve never felt afraid. This is more like some intelligent being with a sense of humor.”

Eighteen months ago, all the shenanigans stopped as suddenly as they began.

All of which has nothing to do with DaLuz’s latest series, a group of angel portraits he calls “Watchers.” Yeah, right.

“I just don’t want to make too big a thing of the paranormal stuff,” he says. “I wouldn’t even use the term ghost. We never saw any apparitions or anything like that.”

And yet, he adds, “I am convinced of one thing. There are things that exist beyond our human senses.”

Well-known for what he calls his “neo-luminist” abstracts — luminism, an offshoot of the Hudson River School, was an American landscape painting style of the 1850s to 1870s characterized by effects of light in landscapes, often using an aerial perspective — DaLuz (and yes, that really is his name, luz being Spanish for light) uses gold and copper leaf with oils in his work to give it an ethereal glow. He splashes chemicals onto some surfaces to foment oxidization and give the paintings a complex patina and texture.

DaLuz, who earned a degree in painting from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2003 after spending 24 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a major, began to paint the angels — figurative, human representations of otherworldly beings, complete with billowing wings — about a year ago.

About 10 of these “Watchers” are on view through Saturday at AnArte Gallery.

They are graceful, meditative works, some imbued in moments of drama, such as “Aloft,” depicting a figure descending to earth, like a meteor entering the atmosphere, its wings forming in a burst of light.

In “Witness,” an angel squats on a cliff’s edge, head in hands, contemplating what is below — us?

“Descent” is basically an angel landing in your lap.

DaLuz has attempted to humanize these figures rather than focus on overtly religious overtones.

“I wanted to extract them from the sanctuary and present them as imperfect beings — more like us,” he says.

“Prevailed (Wounded Angel)” is just that — battle-scarred, “engaged in spiritual warfare,” DaLuz says.

“He may even be a demon. He could be fallen. I’m saying that these beings are subject to the temptations that all of us endure.”

DaLuz insists he is pushing no message with these new paintings, simply trying to evoke “a feeling” within the viewer. He quotes Magritte: “People who look for symbolic meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image.” Whatever the case, they are powerful works.

“I want to stir the viewer’s imagination for just a moment,” he says.

As for all of the happenings in his studio, DaLuz says he feels “somewhat privileged” to have been contacted by someone or something from the other side.

“I don’t know what happens when we die,” he says. “But I am merely suggesting, what if these beings actually exist?”

“Watchers,” a series of angel portraits by San Antonio artist Steven DaLuz, can be seen through Saturday at AnArte Gallery, 7959 Broadway. For more information, call 210-826-5674 or visit http://www.anartegallery09.com/exhibitions.html or http://stevendaluz.com/3/artist.

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