THINK of the artist Paul McCarthy, and it's hard not to imagine him the way he has appeared in countless videos and performances through the years -- stuffing a bunch of mayonnaise-and-ketchup-slathered hot dogs in his mouth, as he did, say, in ''Hot Dog'' (1974), or wearing a clown's nose and muttering maniacally while sloshing paint on canvas (''Painter,'' 1995), or running amok with a gang of elves in a filthy, chocolate-smeared Santa suit (''Santa Chocolate Shop,'' 1996-97). Or else doing other things in projects over the years -- things involving Barbie dolls, sausages, Vaseline and his own and other people's bodily orifices -- that cannot be described here. But during a recent interview at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in New York, the day before the opening of his new show of works on paper there, ''White Snow'' (through Dec. 24), Mr. McCarthy presented a strikingly different persona. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]