Nicholas Zalewsky was born on February 19, 1951, in Kiev, Ukraine, to an ethnically mixed family of a Ukrainian mother and a Jewish father.

From his early childhood, Nicholas showed a talent for drawing, which led him to study in specialized Shevchenko State Art School in Kiev from where he,  —graduated in 1968 (as his friend Les Podervianskyi).

Then he attended the Ukrainian Academy of Printing in Kiev graduating from its Department of Graphic Arts in 1976 and moving on to work as a children books illustrator.

Zalevsky's painting manner exhibits the features of narrative fiction based on the discourse of the absurd associated with the works of Arthur Rimbaud, Samuel Beckett, and Charles Bukowski.

Zalevsky's multi-figured composition "Crucifixion" (1996) gives an unusual treatment to the theme of Christ by depicting only one of his nail-pierced hands of gigantic size stuck out of an entrance to a NYC subway station.