Ms Johnson helped artists from the remote Northern Territory town of Lajamanu bring their work to Canberra for the weekend art market.

"I know the stories of the artists and I know how they live and I know how hard things can be out there," Ms Johnson said.

"I see passion and love. I see a bit of [the painter's] soul."

Some of the artists have travelled more than 20,000 kilometres from outback Australia to bring their art to the two-day market outside the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies on Friday.

She said Lajamanu, nearly 900 kilometres south of Darwin, relied on the art to help prop up the community where meat is an expensive luxury and medical care is limited.

Ms Johnson said the drinking water's high iron content means many locals require dialysis at the town's small clinic with only six beds for a population about 600.

Ms Johnson said the money made from sales goes back to the community, helping maintain the arts centre and provide income.

"[It's about] being able to empathise with the history and being able to understand what selling the art work means to the individual,"  she said.

Lajamanu residents are Warlpiri people and three of them Matrina Nangala Robertson, Ralphie Dixon and Gerald Watson were there to show the works of the communities.

Loretta Halloram, a Ngunnawal woman who grew up at an Indigenous mission outside of Yass, was displaying her hand made pottery.

"When I started pottery about 15 years ago, I was thinking about my dad; I really adored him," Ms Halloran said.

She said when she made the pots she thought about how her father would take her swimming and fishing in a river close to where she grew up.

"I started to build those with my hands when I remembered my father," she said.

Ms Halloran's arthritis made it difficult to use a pottery wheel. Replicating the lines of the river saw her use a simple garlic crusher, and having no kiln herself, she baked the pots in a communal kiln at a Canberra pottery centre.

The Indigenous institute's deputy chief executive Michael Ramalli said it was important for Canberrans to be able to buy directly from the artists.

"It's about connecting right across Australia," he said.

Mr Ramalli said Indigenous art was unique to Australia and should be enjoyed by all Australians as part of the nation's 65,000-year history.