Austin Martin White's dense and tactile compositions glean from images past to scrutinize the hierarchical structures captured by the Western art historical imagination. In “socialclimbing (Staircase)”, White references the 1793 etching by Scottish painter and caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank titled “The Quality Ladder”. Cruikshank was known for his social and political satire. His drawings offered a vivid insight into the cultural and political preoccupations of the British during the late 18th century. In Cruikshank's etching a group of women are attempting to climb the social ladder, depicted as an upward spiraling staircase which White culls in his work with protruding acrylic medium pigmented in a cascading gradient of reds, oranges, and yellows. A recurring theme in Cruikshank's work was the depiction of gluttony and cannibalism used to represent the exploitation enacted upon people by the British monarchy, during a time of intense economic hardship and violent colonial rule. In the title of his painting, White conflates Cruikshank's use of the word quality with social, emphasizing the structural and systemic mechanisms of power and oppression still evident today. By usurping the colonial image the artist redefines its meaning through abstraction — with his idiosyncratic use of color, material, and innovative technical processes.