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. 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 visceral 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 2009, Falb received a Dodge Foundation Fellowship for Artists/Educators that funded her travel to Southern California to record source imagery for her Roller Coaster Series at Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and Pacific Park on Santa Monica Pier. She relocated to Orange County in 2017 and is currently a tenured professor at Fullerton College.

After the move to Southern California, Falb 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.

Exhibition highlights include solo exhibits, Sky Lights, at the Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles and Euphoria, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ Alumni Gallery in Philadelphia; a four-person exhibit at the Preston Contemporary Art Center in New Mexico; and a two-person exhibit at the Noyes Museum of Art in New Jersey.

The Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts recently commissioned and acquired HangTime 2, a painting of a roller coaster based on images taken from a helicopter ride at night over an amusement park in Orange County, California. It is currently on display at the Clark Hill International Law Firm in Philadelphia, PA.

Publications include interviews by Bold Journey: Meet Carla Falb, Canvas Rebel: Meet Carla Falb, Shout Out SoCal: Carla Falb | Painter & Professor, and SDVoyager: Check Out Carla Falb's Artwork. Falb’s paintings have been published in Fresh Paint Magazine, New American Paintings Mid-Atlantic Region, New American Paintings 15 Years, and have been featured on the cover of the Notre Dame Review.