htaccess rewrite rule with escaped ampersand in $_GET fails

I am encountering a problem with a get parameter in conjunction with a htaccess rewrite rule. Below is the urlencode()'ed link; the rewrite rule I use to redirect to index.php, and lastly, a print_r($_GET) on the index.php. As you can see, the urlescaped ampersand is not part of the value for variable static, but instead and contrary to my expectation gets interpreted as a variable seperator. Why?

Initial link:

<a href="static/Game-Tech-%26-Arts-Lab">link</a>

.htaccess:

RewriteRule ^static/(.*)$ /index.php?static=$1 [L]

index.php:

Array ( [static] => Game-Tech- [-Arts-Lab] => )