McCarty is known for his unique and innovative still-life photography. His work fuses reality and hyperreality through the personification and pantomime of toy characters, integrated into actual settings through the use of forced perspective. McCarty documents manufactured moments with a distinct narrative voice and presence, ironically using toy simulacra to explore both reification and actuality.

McCarty’s postmodern integration of concept and character has earned his photography a prominent position in the growing Urban Vinyl / Art-Toy movement, popularized by fellow artists such as Takashi Murakami and Brian “KAWS” Donnelly. McCarty is featured in several books chronicling the artistic movement such as Vinyl Will Kill, Dot Dot Dash, and Toys: New Designs from the Art-Toy Revolution.

Prior to the emergence of Urban Vinyl as a movement, McCarty was using toys in his photography to gain distance from reality while referring to it and attempting to explain it. While at Parsons in 1993, he began work on The Dollhouse. For the series McCarty constructed a toy hyperreality and used the simulacra of family to explore modern living. The Dollhouse received notable praise; earning an honorable mention in the Vera List sponsored Humans All juried competition and inclusion in the traveling group exhibition Making It Real, curated by Vik Muniz.

Upon earning his BFA in 1996 from Parsons School of Design, McCarty accepted a one-year grant to study at the creative research centre Fabrica in Treviso, Italy. There, he collaborated on several prominent fine-art exhibitions, including Habitus, Abito, Abitare, Progetto Arte at the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art and KON©EPT, the first major photographic exhibition in Zagreb after the Croatian War of Independence. McCarty took a somewhat controversial stance and used the forum to explore so-called “war-toys” as both cultural artifacts and tools for gaining perspective on individual experiences of conflict. Building upon earlier work, McCarty photographed the narrative reality of an action-figure integrated into real-life locations and situations. He positioned the ideal, manufactured icon of man against the dehumanizing harshness of war.

Influenced by his time at Fabrica, McCarty returned to the United States and began challenging notions of art and commerce. While working in the toy industry at Mattel, McCarty sought out likeminded collaborators, designers who also saw the potential of toys to be intentional objects of artistic expression. He soon discovered the beginnings of the Urban Vinyl movement in Hong Kong. By 2002, McCarty’s vision and approach had merged with the growing renaissance of toy and character design. He left Mattel and founded his own studio in Los Angeles.

McCarty continued to document reality from a constructed foundation, from the unreal. He made his studio a focal point for artistic and commercial collaboration with others from within the growing Art-Toy movement. This body of work earned notable praise from such places as L’Uomo Vogue, ABC World News, and XLR8R Magazine. His commercial photography roster grew to include pop-culture clients such as Rockstar Games, MTV, and Cartoon Network.

In 2007, McCarty was honored to be included in the first museum exhibition to focus solely on toys as a purposeful means of artistic expression. The Pasadena Museum of California Art played host to Beyond Ultraman: Seven Artists Explore the Vinyl Frontier, curated by Maria Kwong. In addition to new fine art and commercial projects, McCarty is currently working on a collection of his Art-Toy photography to be published by Baby Tattoo Books in 2009.