Drawn to the discarded, McCarthy’s intimate works are often made using materials and tools that have been abandoned, shared or recycled, her works are often accompanied by texts that allude to her long history in the street art community and her central role in the “Mission School”; a group of artists working in the Mission District of San Francisco in the early 1990s that emerged in the pre-dot com boom of the Bay Area. McCarthy alongside Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, Ruby Neri and Barry McGee, has come to embody the street and graffiti culture of this lively rustic aesthetic.

Her work has been featured in numerous institutions including the Berkeley Arts Center and the Dallas Museum of Art as well as the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.