To Strike a Match: Talking with George Chang (‘28) and Matthew Gebhardt (MFA ’00)

Art Match is entering its second year. This initiative of the Director of The Penn Art Collection, Lynn Dolby, matches Penn undergraduates with a piece of fine art from the University’s over 9000-piece collection. After it is hung in the students’ places of residence, they have the academic year to learn and grow alongside the artwork. In the initiative’s first year, sophomore George Chang chose—and was offered the opportunity to live with—Prodigal Son, a print Matthew Gebhardt (MFA ‘00) produced while a graduate student at Penn. This is what artist and student had to say about the experience.

How did you two get involved with Art Match?

GC: I was taking a class with Dr. Gwendolyn Shaw, and for one of our projects for the class, we had to work with The Penn Collection. We essentially picked one of the sculptures on campus and researched and learned about it. And through that experience, I got connected with Lynn Dolby, and then found out about Art Match, and it seemed like a really exciting opportunity.

MG: I was contacted by Lynn Dolby asking if I was interested in letting George “live” with one of my prints for a new program they started at Penn. I, of course, said yes because—why not?  It would just be sitting there in the archives.  It’s a good idea, and I was reminded about the work I did over 20 years ago…. a reminder of my past ideas and thoughts. It was nice to remember my time at Penn.

Matthew, can you tell us a little more about that time?

MG: This was 1998-2000, and I had a great time at Penn and in Philadelphia. I initially was going to go to grad school at Columbia, but Penn felt more welcoming and a bit less overwhelming at that time for me. I was from Colorado, so the East Coast city life was alien to me. I thought I would be able to focus more on my work without the trappings of NYC. I did end up living in NYC for 15 years afterwords, but I think my time at Penn allowed me to explore more freely while still being in a large city. The art faculty allowed me almost pure intellectual freedom to pursue what I wanted, and professors in other disciplines like philosophy and theoretical physics (which I was really into at that time), allowed me to attend their classes and proffered advice freely! Twenty years ago, West Philly looked a little different—and I think that made me more scrappy and fostered creative ingenuity. Honestly, I think I chose Penn because as a child, I was obsessed with Ben Franklin, and still am, and I was just drawn to it organically that way. My daughters are also now Ben Franklin obsessive! After Penn, I ended going to the Slade School of Art in London.

George, how did you end up choosing Matthew’s piece?

GC: Yeah, so, if I remember correctly, there was a form that we could choose from that outlined the available pieces. I was really struck by Prodigal Son. I think that the colors—the striking red and yellows and blacks—were really compelling to me, and the title too carried so much emotional weight, especially juxtaposed against the more abstract figuration of the piece. Combined together, the emotional and abstract weight of the piece convinced me to choose it.

Matthew, how did the piece come to be?

MG: In the Art school at that time, I was a bit of an anomaly. I was an MFA in painting, but I actually was a multimedia artist and performance/dance artist. I got in trouble with some of my more traditional professors a bit, but others let me loose as long as I got my work done, which was perfect for how I worked—I was always kind of a troublemaker. The print that George selected was actually more of a poster or a billboard of the painting and performance I created for my first-year thesis (‘99), which I titled Prodigal Son. I created an 80’ long by 9’ high painting and hung it in the gallery enveloping the space. On the floor was another painting that was a pathway and road for me as I slowly danced and mimicked the figures I painted behind me and viewers watched from the center of the gallery. The painting was a serial depiction of the parable from left to right of the story of the prodigal son, a framework for more layered ideas and concepts that I did weave within the painting—stories from Shakespeare to Hemingway, ballets from Coppelia to Giselle, and concepts from theoretical physics and philosophy. Ideas about creative destruction, rebirth, homecoming, forgiveness: “What was dead is alive again, he was lost and now is found.” A journey of a man exploring the endless dialectic relationships that exist in the world.

MG: The print that George had was a depiction of that work, and the main figure was a depiction of myself, dressed up in my dance costume (which looked exactly like that). It’s in primary colors yellow, red, and blue, with the name of my painting/project on it. The red is a cockscomb on the head of the character, prodigal son, which comes from a Shakespeare play which symbolizes both a cocky and cocksure man while also the great fool… a conflicted man. The print was a reminder of that creation, which is now destroyed.

MG: But I would love to know how it grew or didn’t on George—and what he thought it meant.

GC: I mean, obviously, you can view it as a sort of allegorical piece, given the biblical references of the prodigal son. I was raised Baptist. I’ve been to church during my childhood and throughout most of my teenage years. I think that religion is so complex and so personal, but I think that what’s beautiful about allegories, right? That you can extrapolate what you need out of the stories and kind of strip away the ideology, the socio-political context of it, and just view the message within the medium of the artwork. It was really rewarding to find my own personal meaning within the denser context. I thought initially of themes return and acceptance, and I think those ideas are even more striking when seen through the form of the piece—whether it’s the primary colors that are utilized, and the kind of abstract figuration incorporated. Living with art is totally different than just gazing at it within a gallery or museum setting. And having it be a part of my Penn experience has been very meaningful.

MG: I agree the gallery or museum settings sometimes disconnect the artwork from its actual meaning and purpose—almost creating a “reverence” for the work that is not always warranted or distorts the relationship between the work and the viewer. In my house artwork is all over the place, sometimes stacked on shelves and countertops. The artwork is always interactive as my family moves around the home. We move the artworks around and place them next to other works within the home, creating new relationships… it’s always a new and growing physical and visual panoply that we live with every day.

GC: Yes, and living with it really just emphasized this idea of my home, my dorm room, as a genuine place of comfort and belonging, especially within such a busy and go-go-go environment. I’m not that decorative of a person, so in the beginning, it was literally just, you know, this bright, colorful piece on my bare walls right next to my bed. But it immediately livened up the place, and it inspired me to become more comfortable with adding other personal touches, and really having it be a cornerstone, a corner piece of my room.

MG: So, I’m with George—I believe living with art makes it more meaningful and transformative.

*This piece was compiled (and abridged) from several email exchanges and an interview conducted in August 2026.