Nicholas Mynheer: Resurrection Altar
Title: Resurrection Altar
Artist: Nicholas Mynheer (b. 1958, British)
Location: Church of the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield (C of E)
Date: 2012
Mynheer’s Resurrection Altar was nominated for Ecclesiart by Christopher Irvine, who writes: “The altar that stands solidly as the ‘centre-point’ in the Resurrection Chapel around which the Community of the Resurrection and its guests gather on most days for the celebration of the Eucharist was designed and sculpted by Nicholas Mynheer. Each of the four panels depicts a scene inspired by a resurrection story in the Gospels. Around the figure of Christ breaking the single loaf of bread is a cloud of faces representing humanity startled by the realization that they are one, united in Christ. The artist’s highly stylized faces effectively signal the strangeness of the resurrection. Christ appears and allows himself to be seen, but he is not immediately recognisable. The risen Christ is known in flashing moments of recognition, and then vanishes from sight. One side panel shows the angel announcing to the women in the garden on the first Easter morning that Christ is not in the tomb, leaving them both alarmed and tingling with an apprehensive joy at what God had silently done in the stillness of the night. Another moment of recognition is shown on the other side panel, the moment when the disciples saw the abundance of Christ’s risen life in a miraculous haul of fish. The back panel has an opening, a low arch into a dark interior, recalling how the Christ who entered even into the dark caverns of death, now leads us in a triumphal procession of life, as on Easter day when Brothers of the Community, theological students from the College, and their guests circle round and round the altar singing the Easter proclamation. Surrexit, Alleluia!”
Nicholas Mynheer (b. 1958, British) studied Graphic Design at the Hornsey College of Art in London, graduating in 1981. After spending several years working in advertising he turned to painting full time, then subsequently sculpture and glass design.
A rigorous simplicity typifies Mynheer’s work, whether it be in stone, oil or glass. Anything superfluous to the design is omitted and anything deemed important emphasised. Largely figurative his work is almost always biblically based and has a linear quality that is richly expressive.
Further Information
Medium: Caen stone
Permanent display
See Nicholas Mynheer’s Resurrection Altar on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: Mirfield Priory
Nominated by: Christopher Irvine
Other artworks in churches by Nicholas Mynheer: Salutation, Newcastle Cathedral; Guardian Angel, 2011, St Edward’s School Chapel; aumbry, St Mary’s Iffley; altar, 2012, St Mary’s Kiddington; Madonna & Child, Church of The Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Beckley, Oxford; Peter and Christ, Church of St Peter, Goetre, Pontypool, Wales; cross, St Bartholomew’s Church, East Ham, London; Christ Dies, St Gregory’s Church, Sudbury, Suffolk, 1999; Stations of the Cross, Church of The Good Shepherd, Nottingham; The Word, Birmingham Cathedral, 2000; Holy Trinity, Church of The Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, Suffolk; Holy Family, chasuble, Stations of the Cross, St. Matthew’s Church, Perry Beeches, Birmingham; Wilcote Chapel Polyptych, Northleigh Church; glass screen, St Nicholas’s Church, Islip, 2011; window for St Martin’s Church, Tuddenham St Martin, Ipswich, Suffolk; St Peter & St Paul Glass Screen, Great Missenden Church; St Barnabas Window, Church of St Barnabas, Horton-cum-Studley, Oxford; five windows, Methodist Church House, Marylebone Road, London