"Her medium is energy," was the apt comment by the Serpentine's artistic director Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s at yesterday's (29 November) opening of Rose Wylie's solo show of enormous exuberant canvases, which line the walls of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. This certainly seemed a good way to sum up the animated, unruly parade of footballers, Hollywood royalty, cut-out dolls as well as Queen Elizabeth, all of which—along with rumbustious dogs, elephants and much more—have been whipped into existence with lashings of oil paint. In one painting even a park bench seems poised for liftoff, and the fact that some of the works had only recently left the studio was confirmed by a distinctly discernible whiff of oil paint.