Halyna was born in 1929 in Uzbekistan where her family hid from the terror of the Bolsheviks. Her father was an architect with Polish roots, and her mother belonged to an aristocratic Ukrainian family. After some time, the Sevruks returned to Ukraine where they experienced the difficult years of Nazi occupation.

Halyna's creative work began in the 1960s during the revival of Ukrainian culture. It was then that Sevruk realized it was impossible to be an artist in Ukraine and not know the local language, literature, and history. She had to self-educate.

In 1964, along with Alla Horska, Opanas Zalyvakha and Lyudmyla Semykina, Halyna Sevruk created a stained glass window "Shevchenko. Mother" for the Kyiv University. The work depicted poet Taras Shevchenko as an indignant artist defending an offended woman who symbolized Ukraine. The stained glass piece was destroyed immediately after its installation. Repressions followed.

In 1965–1966, the authorities intensified their pressure on all opposition-minded intellectuals. However, the attack had the opposite effect: the Sixtiers who remained at large resisted even more desperately. Sevruk's civic stance became clear in 1968 when she signed a letter against repressions and secret trials of Ukrainian intellectuals. For this, Halyna was expelled from the Artists Union and her studio granted by the state was taken away from her.

For twenty years her works were not accepted for exhibitions.

Looking for means of self-expression, Sevruk turned to ceramics. The artist's portfolio includes stelae, the design of hotels and restaurants, sculptural images of Slavic gods, ceramic works on the themes of the Cossack era and Kyivan Rus, a series of more than 500 portraits of historical figures and prominent contemporaries.