Storytelling is a major theme in Wall's work. Many of his pictures imply a narrative, but leave it open-ended, allowing the viewer to make the imaginative leap to completion.

'The 'figura' of the storyteller is an archaism, a social type which has lost its function as a result of the technological transformations of literacy… such ruined figures embody essential elements of historical memory, the memory of values excluded by capitalist progress and seemingly forgotten by everyone.' - Jeff Wall