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National

The Bushman's Son about to hit shelves

'The Bushman’s son artist' Terry Fergusson-Hughes (Ngāpuhi, Hokianga, Whirinaki) has written and published a book with the same title as his nickname.

The book is about Fergusson-Hughes' life, growing up in Tokoroa, connecting to his whakapapa, confronting colonisation, dealing with his battle with depression, being a father to two boys and coming out as a gay man after a failed marriage.

Fergusson-Hughes was also a finalist in the 2021 Kīngi Tūheitia portraiture awards.

Having been undiagnosed with anxiety for most of his life Fergusson-Hughes said that once he was on the right medication his mind was “once again clear”.

Fergusson-Hughes said that he used this time to return to his roots, which were based on art. “It was my mother who pushed me to sketch, draw and do photography.

“I felt in my own mind when I was younger that I would just tell stories through my own art and I started with them as my subjects and then looking back to my tipuna as subjects as well.”

Some of the most confronting things that Fergusson-Hughes outlined in his book were some of the things that he did as a younger man. “There were a lot of dark stories of hiding who I was sexually.

“The lengths you had to go through to get gratification, and the drug use that went with that, then coming out of that and trying to balance the secret life with my non-secret life.

“It’s so intertwined but it’s not all about that. It's about my family, my whānau, my whakapapa, my English side - it all comes together to make the person who I wanted to be perfect.

“I wanted all these little things to fit into little boxes and it didn’t really happen and my anxiety went boom.”

Terry Fergusson-Hughes’s book can be found at pegasuspublishers.com for pre-order.