During his studies, Zalyvakha practiced in Kosiv in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. He became deeply attached to the land, its nature, people, and the melodic Ukrainian language. In 1961, he moved to Ivano-Frankivsk. His first solo exhibition was deemed unacceptable by the Communist Party’s regional committee, which condemned it as carrying “decadent moods” and soon shut down it.
Together with young Kyiv artists, poets, and critics, Zalyvakha became actively involved in the human rights movement. In collaboration with Alla Horska, Liudmyla Semikina, Halyna Sevruk, and Halyna Zubchenko, he created the stained-glass panel Shevchenko. Mother at the Red Building of Kyiv University for the 150th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s birth. The work was deemed ideologically hostile and ordered to be destroyed.
In 1965, Zalyvakha was arrested and sentenced to five years in a strict-regime labor camp for “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation”. While imprisoned in Mordovia’s Camp No. 11, he secretly continued to create — ex libris prints, greeting cards, sketches for thematic compositions, and posters depicting Shevchenko. After returning to Ivano-Frankivsk in 1970, he married Daryna, a niece of Stepan Bandera.
Zalyvakha’s style is unique, recognizable, and imbued with symbolism. His art became a form of resistance, a way to voice protest even in captivity. In his works, he reimagined the nation’s historical past, glorified the figure of Shevchenko, expressed philosophical reflections, conveyed the spirituality of the Ukrainian people, revealed the tragedies of human fate, exposed the crimes of the totalitarian regime, and celebrated the courage and dignity of those who fought for freedom.
He illustrated Vasyl Stus’s Palimpsests and Yevhen Sverstiuk’s Prodigal Sons of Ukraine, and designed interiors of restaurants in Ivano-Frankivsk.
Recognition came in the late 1980s. Zalyvakha’s solo exhibitions were held in Kyiv, Lviv, Toronto, London, and New York (posthumously). The total number of his works remains unknown: he was extraordinarily generous, often giving them away, sometimes without even signing them.
A monument to the artist, created by sculptor Ihor Semak, stands in Ivano-Frankivsk.