El poder brutal was sculpted between 1985 and 1987 by César Octaviano Cristóbal Buenaño Núñez, a tractor driver employed by the Ecuadorean Ministry of Public Works. Buenaño was born in Ambato and lived in Santo Domingo de los Colorados. He died of leukemia in 2001.[1] Although he had only a primary-school education and lacked formal artistic training, he was an autodidact and managed to gather several million sucres in order to sculpt "El poder brutal" over the course of more than a year. Before he commenced on the sculpture, only his family and close friends were aware of his artistic tendencies.

The Ministry of Public Works tasked Buenaño with the demolition of a rocky hill along a curve of the Alóag–Santo Domingo road, at approximately the 50-km marker. This rock was blocking the view of drivers and causing accidents along the road. Buenaño began his work with a Payloader tractor. In this work he uncovered a gigantic solid rock, which he decided to sculpt.

First, he sketched the sculpture. In addition to this design work, the sculptor made his own tools, such as chisels, combos, hammers, and a system of pulleys to navigate the surface of the rock while he carved it. Bueñano worked the mountain with his tractor between 6 AM and 3 PM every day; from 3 PM to 9 PM he worked on the sculpture. He angled his tractor work with great care so that the colossal sculpture would not be visible from the road until it was finished. Finally, the Ministry demanded that Buenaño finish the demolition; the final dynamite blast revealed the sculpture to view.

Bueñano commented during the construction to his friends that "by sculpting a figure that represented the Devil, the Devil would leave the drivers alone." Referring to a small Catholic shrine 10 km away, he also said, "If the Virgin and the saints have their sculptures, why cannot the Devil have his own?"[citation needed]