McCarthy’s work reflects the vision informed by his career as an advertising art director. He is a prolific sketcher from years of creating storyboards and capturing scenes while on location scouting for television and print ads. He would later render these sketches in watercolor or in oil for his larger canvas work. He is inspired by realist and impressionist painters – Hopper, Hockney, Van Gogh, and Seurat. ​He attended San Jose State University and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he studied art and design.

McCarthy expressed his thoughts on his work succinctly ‘I think a successful painting is one that has both visual and emotional appeal. Sometimes I’ll involve a person in a landscape to suggest more of a narrative. My hope is that my canvas will end up with a little bit of the unexpected, maybe with some humor or pathos.”