Art studied science at the University of Ottawa and earned an Honours B.Sc. degree in 1997. As an undergraduate student he had the opportunity to work at Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck, Shipley, and the National Research Council. He also conducted undergraduate research with Professor Alex Fallis.

In 1998 Art moved to Vancouver, BC to study natural products synthesis with the late Ed Piers at the University of British Columbia.

In 2003 he moved to Grenoble, France as a Chateaubriand post-doctoral fellow to work with Andrew Greene. In 2005 he joined Tom Rovis' group, then at Colorado State University, as a post-doctoral fellow.

He returned to Canada in 2007 to take up a faculty position at York University in Toronto. He received tenure in 2012 and was promoted to full professor in 2020.