Terry Fergusson-Hughes — The Bushman’s Son

Terry Fergusson-Hughes — known to galleries, readers and wedding guests across New Zealand simply as The Bushman’s Son — is a self-taught artist, published author and celebrant whose work is as much about honesty as it is about craft. Born and raised in the small rugby-and-hunting town of Tokoroa, and connected to Ngāpuhi through Hokianga and Whirinaki, Terry grew up feeling like the odd one out among his siblings — a boy drawn to sketching and quiet observation in a world that prized very different things. That tension between who he was expected to be and who he actually was would go on to shape both his art and his story.

Terry never trained formally. Encouraged first by his mother to pick up a pencil and a camera, he taught himself to draw, paint and see — turning family members, ancestors and, later, cultural and pop-culture icons into subjects on the canvas. Painting became his way of making sense of things: heritage, identity, the impact of colonisation on his whakapapa, and the parts of his life he had spent years keeping hidden. That self-taught, deeply personal practice has since earned him national recognition, including a People’s Choice Award and finalist placing at the Adam Portraiture Awards, and a finalist placing in the Kīngi Tūheitia Portraiture Awards — two of New Zealand’s most respected portrait art prizes.

In 2022, Terry took that same honesty to the page, publishing his memoir The Bushman’s Son through Vanguard Press. The book traces his life from a 1960s small-town childhood through fatherhood, marriage, coming out as a gay man, and the rebellion, heartache and eventual reconciliation that followed — a frank account of “fatherhood, coming out, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll all rolled into one story,” as Terry has described it. It is, in many ways, the origin story behind the name he now paints, writes and works under.

Terry’s art has since found an audience well beyond New Zealand. His portrait of Marilyn Monroe, The Cost of Hollywood Glamour — a deliberately unglamorous, almost bleeding interpretation of the icon — was selected for 100 Ways to Say Marilyn, an international exhibition in Milan marking 100 years since Monroe’s birth, held at the PassepARTout Unconventional Gallery. It is a long way from Tokoroa, and Terry is the first to say he never set out to get there — he simply kept making the work that felt true to him.

Alongside his art and writing, Terry gives back to the creative community that shaped him. In 2017 he established The Bushman’s Son Fund, administered through the Geyser Community Foundation, to support emerging artists and writers with connections to the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua — helping cover the cost of materials, courses, exhibitions and other creative pursuits for people who might not otherwise have the means. Each year, Terry and his husband Kyle host a fundraising dinner to help keep the fund going, bringing friends and supporters together in support of local creative talent. Terry has also generously donated original artwork to charitable causes closer to home, including the Child Cancer Foundation and Hospice, helping raise funds for the vital work those organisations do in the community.

Today, Terry lives in Papamoa in the Bay of Plenty with his husband Kyle, where he continues to paint, write and — as a marriage celebrant and Justice of the Peace — help others mark the biggest moments of their own stories. Whether you’re here to buy or commission a piece of his art, read his memoir, or ask him to officiate your wedding or witness a document, you’re joining a story that has always been about turning an unconventional life into something worth sharing.