Carla Falb was raised in Philadelphia and spent her summers at the Jersey Shore.  She received a B.F.A. from the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts (UArts), and a Certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1983.  Twenty years later, Falb returned to UArts for her M.F.A. in Painting, where she began a series of oil paintings based on roller coaster structures.  Most of her imagery is based on photos and videos that she shoots while riding in the front car, to infuse the sensations she experiences into her paintings – like a 21st century J.M.W. Turner tied to the mast of a ship witnessing a storm at sea. 

In 2017, Falb relocated to Orange County and is currently a tenured professor at Fullerton College.  After the cross country move, she began a new iteration of her Roller Coaster Series based on photographs of light streams taken while riding the West Coaster and Pacific Wheel on the Santa Monica Pier at night, resulting in a fusion of abstraction and realism. This series is called Illuminations, and her imagery has expanded to include fireworks. 

Falb’s work has appeared in exhibitions throughout the United States including Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles, Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia, Oceanside Museum of Art and Triton Museum of Art in California, Preston Contemporary Art Center in New Mexico, Noyes Museum of Art in New Jersey, and The Alumni Gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.  In 2009, she was a recipient of a Dodge Foundation Fellowship for Artists/Educators to document amusement parks for her series of roller coaster paintings. Her work has been featured in Bold Journey, Canvas Rebel, Shoutout SoCal, New American Paintings, ArtSpeak, and Fresh Paint Magazine among others.