Terry received a scholarship for the Lower School of Liverpool Art College at the early age of thirteen. From there he went into printing and photography and later worked as a photo-lithographer in London. In 1975 after returning to education, he graduated from Liverpool College of Art where he had the opportunity to work on projects with Joseph Beuys and John Cage. In the 1975 and 1976 London New Contemporaries Show, he experimented with then radical issues in Live Art and later exhibited at the ICA “European Artist” Stuttgart and later worked with Roy Adzak in Paris.

In the 1980’s Terry received major Arts Council award, and exhibited with great success throughout the UK as well as in New York and Philadelphia. In the early 1990’s he was included in both the Hunting Observer and John Moore’s prizes and in 1992 he was the British Council Fine Art Fellow in Budapest. 1998 saw Terry receive major funding from the Lottery Foundation for the largest glass commission in the UK

With his reputation as a contemporary artist with rare artistic views and visions beyond accepted boundaries ever growing, Terry started to achieve European and international recognition. His work is of such immense quality and depth and so sought after that it is now included in many national and international private and corporate collections.