Biography
Mykola Vasyliovych Zhulinskyi (Born 1953, Chorna village, Khmelnytskyi region) works in monumental and easel painting, graphic art, and decorative sculpture; he is also an educator.
1978 — Graduated from the Grekov Odesa Art College.
1980–1985 — Studied at the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute under Yevhen Bykov and Oleksandr Khmelnytskyi.
1985–1993 — Worked as a monumental artist at the Sumy Art and Production Factory; 1994–2004 — Served as its director.
From 1987 — Participant in all-Ukrainian, foreign, and international exhibitions, including events in Gliwice (Poland), Kyiv, Odesa, and Ivano-Frankivsk.
1991 — Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
From 2004 — Lecturer at the Sumy Institute for the Humanities; from 2012 — Lecturer at A. S. Makarenko Sumy State Pedagogical University.
2012 — Honored Art Worker of Ukraine.
Lives and works in Sumy.
Zhulinskyi actively participates in international, national, and regional scientific conferences, symposiums, and artistic projects, resulting in numerous academic publications. His creative practice represents a spiritual and intellectual inquiry into reality through visual imagery. The central focus of his work is the comprehension of the human condition. His artistic intent is directed toward constructing and interpreting associative-philosophical themes. At the core of his works lies a folk-folklore system of imagery that serves as the foundation of his worldview. Over time, the painter’s allegorical-metaphorical reflections transitioned into the metaphysical realm.
From the early 1990s onward, his compositions reflected shifts in his understanding of the world. During this period, he produced a series of works based on the ideas of the Indian thinker, spiritual teacher, philosopher, poet, and yogi Sri Aurobindo, uniting visual aspects of painting with an intellectual comprehension of human nature. The series Journey to Oneself with Sri Aurobindo represents an attempt to address fundamental questions: “Who am I? What is the essence of my life? What is happening to us, and why do we live this way?”
