Zhyvotkov belongs to the generation of artists who created avant-garde art in the late 1980s, challenging the official Soviet canon. Though rooted in the past, his works, shaped by Ukraine’s dramatic history, remain strikingly relevant.
In 2023, Zhyvotkov captured the tragedy of the present in sculptural reliefs and counter-reliefs made of stone and wood, presented in the exhibition Altar. These works embody Ukrainian struggle, resilience, and strength, calling for collective memory. They inscribe specific dates and places, bearing wounds that will never heal — Bucha, Mariupol, Irpin, Kherson, Vinnytsia.
Zhyvotkov’s artistic language is complex, distinctive, and unlike anything else. His works are always recognizable, marked by his personal stamp both outwardly and inwardly. He works across various techniques, eagerly experimenting with materials such as cardboard, paper, sand, earth, and stone. In painting, he uses canvas and wooden boards, creating minimalist works in an ascetic palette. A hallmark of his art is a symbolic system of recurring motifs: fish, female figure, cross, bird, etc.
Zhyvotkov’s works are held in the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Museum of Art History in Vienna, BBC Gallery in London, the Sumy Regional Art Museum named after Nikanor Onatsky, and the Ukrainian House in Kyiv.