He served in the Royal Air Force as an aerial reconnaissance photographer before beginning his career as an artist in 1952, initially as a figurative painter.

He associated with prominent St. Ives artists, including Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, and Terry Frost, as well as young contemporaries Trevor Bell and Anthony Benjamin.

[3] Wall joined the Penwith Society of Arts, an organization of artists at St. Ives which promoted their work to the public, becoming secretary.

His work appeared in the New British Painting and Sculpture show in London, 1967–68[10] and at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, England.

These were displayed at a solo show at the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, California in 2015.

Wall's early sculptures consisted of geometrical wooden constructions, painted in bright primary colors, reminiscent of the work of Piet Mondrian[18] and influenced by the Dutch abstract art movement "de Stijl".

Wall was exposed to writers, e.g., James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw; and jazz in this period, all of which influenced his art.

Over the years he increased the scale of his creations to extend to over 10–15 feet and painted in bright colors, appropriate for outdoor settings, e.g., Blue Diamond, 1968 (156" x 181" x 60"h).

By 2007, Wall had started using stainless steel in his work, in a series titled "Squaring the Circle": stainless steel sheets are cut into strips and welded into four-sided curved elements square in cross-section, each a section of a circle, then welded together into an abstract shape.

[1] He also produced mixed-media drawings in the 1990s using oil pastels and acetate on paper, showing abstract colorful patterns.