"We are lucky with the wind today," Bardi man Russell Davey says, as women to his left carve etchings inside a light-filled warehouse.

It is one of five buildings — including two studios, a gallery and a storage room — due to open next week as the Ingarlgalandij Art and Culture Centre in the remote Ardyaloon community, 220 kilometres north of Broome.

A breeze moves through the room, past chisels, paintbrushes and screen-printing tables, where women are putting paintings of bush foods onto dresses.

Mr Davey says the airflow makes a difference to the hands-on work of creating art.

It's June and well into the dry season, but the sea breeze does not always carry through from the pindan-stained cliffs hugging the community like it did on the day National Indigenous Times visited.

"Sometimes we have to choose certain hours of the day to work, not only because it's uncomfortable but because it can negatively impact painting materials," Mr Davey said.

Due to a lack of funding, the small storage room is the only facility that can be powered, and therefore air conditioned.

Lack of adequate power is just one of the practical challenges facing the new centre.

Aboriginal Art Centre Hub of WA (AACHWA) chief executive and proud Nyul Nyul and Bardi man Chad Creighton wants funding increased for art centres across the country, including in WA.

"I'd like to see it increase for all art centres in Australia, but yeah, definitely for WA art centres," Mr Creighton said.

He said art centres provided income for artists, but also supported language, culture and community wellbeing.

"People will often speak language and share language, and that way language retention is happening just naturally," he said.

"It's also about people's mental health, wanting to document culture in new ways and different mediums, and being able to express yourself and your identity through art in different ways."

As artworks are hung to dry, Bardi Jawi Elder Maureen Davey explains the vision for Ingarlgalandij Art and Culture Centre was first promoted by her late husband and other community cultural leaders who have since passed.

"It was the old people that always wanted an art centre here, like my late husband and his family," Ms Davey said.

"The whole community wanted it, so it's really good we have finally got one going."

Ardyaloon remains a deeply cultural place, where ceremony is practised, Bardi and Jawi language are renewed, and the art created at the centre carries a history of customs and traditions which flourished long before colonisation.

Pearl shell lines the reefs around Ardyaloon. Known as Riji in language, it features in many of the artists' work, Mr Davey said.

"This kind of Riji is unique to this part of the country," she said. "Our people have been using Riji for thousands of years."

Proud Bardi man and artist Ashley Hunter employs the art form to look back.

It allows him to capture the traditional way of life his father, grandfather and great-grandfather knew in Ardyaloon and surrounding Country.

"I like to see back through my art, on what life was like before," Mr Hunter said.

He shows an etching of a woman he has carved into boab wood. With contoured facial lines and staring eyes, the work appears almost photographic.

"It's an old woman, pre-colonisation, sitting down and teaching kids," Mr Hunter said. He made the artwork for the centre's opening.

Mr Creighton, says the opening carries particular significance.

He said Bardi artists and culture were already known nationally and internationally, but Bardi people had never had an art centre in their own community.

"Our Bardi artists and culture are known nationally and internationally, with people like Roy Wiggan and Aubrey Tigan represented in major institutions across Australia," he said.

"But we have never had an art centre in our own community that Bardi people can access and be part of."

For art manager and Ardyaloon council member Aggie Pigram, that is the purpose of the new centre.

"Our goal for the art and culture hub is about creating opportunities for artists and cultural practitioners, while building capacity in the community," Ms Pigram, a proud Yawuru and Bardi woman, said.

Cultural knowledge holders such as Ms Davey carry significant cultural responsibilities, but also have bills to pay.

"We want them to have a space where they can practise their culture through art, and economically benefit through the selling of that art," she said.

The desire to create an art and culture centre was so strong that Ms Pigram, her partner Mr Davey, Mr Hunter and other community members spent three years voluntarily cleaning up the five abandoned buildings in the community.

"It took three years of cleaning up rubbish and mould from the abandoned buildings, but we as a community did it," Ms Davey said.

But as the community prepares to open the long-awaited centre, its leaders say funding for remote Aboriginal art centres still does not cover the basic costs of keeping the doors open.

Ms Pigram said government grants did not cover the full cost of power, staffing and day-to-day operations.

The centre has secured federal funding through the Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support program, but Ms Pigram said the money was limited and doesn't meet the cost of running a remote art centre.

She said Ingarlgalandij had received $80,000 a year, with $20,000 allocated to buying materials.

The remaining $60,000 was divided between three key roles: an arts worker, a studio coordinator and an art centre manager.

"That only goes for part-time, casual part-time," Ms Pigram said.

She said the funding was vital but was not enough to cover the full cost of keeping the centre open, paying staff properly or improving the buildings.

"It's all program-based funding," she said.

"There's no money for infrastructure or operational funding, like powering electricity for air conditioning."

A Federal Government spokesperson said the Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support program provided about $33 million annually to support the Indigenous visual arts sector, and could support minor infrastructure upgrades.

Ms Pigram said the centre had also received a $50,000 grant, as well as additional funding from the WA Government for mentorship, rather than core operating costs.

She said the mentorship funding would help build the skills of local Bardi people to take on leadership roles within the centre.

"We've always been, from day one, about building opportunities for our own people, Bardi people, Aboriginal people, to be in leadership positions," Ms Pigram said.

"We're fully Bardi operated and owned, and it's about building capacity in our mob in community to take on those roles."

A WA Government spokesperson told National Indigenous Times the State had funded two applications from Ardyaloon Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation, including $25,000 in 2024 for cultural activities, language and stories, and $50,000 in 2025 to support arts worker and artist training and professional development.

But Ms Pigram echoed Mr Creighton's notion that art centre's impact transcends the art that is created, and therefore should be funded adequately.

She said that work was essential because the centre was not just a place to make and sell art.

"We're not just doing art," she said. "We're doing art, culture, language — that's about preservation of the culture."

The role art centres play in the physical, mental and cultural wellbeing of remote Aboriginal communities was explored by proud Bidjara woman, Professor Maree Meredith in her thesis, Mapping the health promotion benefits of art centres on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands.

"The art centre accommodates the social, spiritual, economic and cultural imperatives of mob in community. It nurtures what needs to be nurtured, bringing it all together in a holistic model of health," Professor Meredith told National Indigenous Times.

She said art centres could provide a safe cultural space, particularly when being on Country was difficult.

"While nothing replaces being on Country, during the current cost-of-living crisis — when high fuel prices limit access — the art centre remains a vital space," she said.

"It enables elders and cultural leaders to continue expressing and preserving their connections to Country through painting culture, Country and kin."

But in Ardyaloon, the kind of cultural and community work Professor Meredith describes will be put on hold for about six months during the wet season, when temperatures can push towards 40 degrees and humidity above 70 per cent makes art making near impossible without air conditioning.

"It's a shame," Ms Pigram said.

"The wet season is our quietest time, so that's when we as a community could have created the most."

Still, Ms Pigram said the years of volunteer work which brought Ingarlgalandij to life and reflected community determination to make the centre happen.

She said the benefits following from the art centre's existence would reach beyond the artists working inside its buildings, extending in particular to young people growing up in Ardyaloon.

"Having our young people stand strong and proud in who they are anchors them and keeps them culturally safe in the world, to then go out and be better leaders and stronger people for themselves," Ms Pigram said.

"It's all about that liyan — keeping that centre and culture as part of their identity, who they are and where they come from.

"We're capturing that and building them up in that space, keeping them anchored in their roots to then go out and share that with the world."